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   https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-trump-a-clear-and-present-danger-to-the-nation-pelosi-says  ::   < VIDEO : Trump a ‘clear and present danger’ to the nation, Pelosi says 

   https://youtu.be/UDxblXK4giE  ::  Transcript 


PLAYBOY INTERVIEW SHREDDED

PLAYBOY INTERVIEW ORIGINAL 


https://hansandcassady.org/Trump-the-VOTE.html  < Dear Ohio State Senators Brown and Portman
https://hansandcassady.org/Trump-Intelligence-Allegations-copied-2-2-2018.pdf  < 
Steele dossier. 1of2 ... batch of short reports produced between June and December 2016 by
https://hansandcassady.org/Trump-University-Sales-Playbook-COPY-9-17-2020.pdf  < TRUMP UNIVERSITY - EXHIBIT D "Sales Playbook" : Scam
https://hansandcassady.org/Trump-sexual-Misconduct.html < 
The 25 women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct
https://hansandcassady.org/Trump-nyTimes-9-27-2020.html < TAXES : LONG-CONCEALED RECORDS SHOW TRUMP’S CHRONIC LOSSES AND YEARS OF TAX AVOIDANCE
https://hansandcassady.org/Trump-OPEN-plan.html  < Shred - Trump's  Opening Up America Again "plan"
https://hansandcassady.org/Trump.html  < THIS PAGE --- YOU ARE HERE 
https://hansandcassady.org/Trump-Story-Photos.html  < Trump Photos - growing up ... with his Dad & Mom etc.
https://hansandcassady.org/Trump-Rally-announce.html   < 
"Women For America First" : Another Rally


  PLAYBOY INTERVIEW SHREDDED by Susan 

 "playboy" "1990" "Trump" "interview" < Google >  [ Another article "shredded" by Susan -- i.e. hyperlinks and senior white lady comments added ]


 SOURCE: https://www.playboy.com/read/playboy-interview-donald-trump-1990

"...  Title: "THE PLAYBOY INTERVIEW WITH DONALD TRUMP" published Mar 1, 1990 ...

 Playboy sat down with ... Donald Trump in 1990 where he teased a future in politics

Written by GLENN PLASKIN, Photographed by RANDY O'ROURKE ... [NOTE: Only the text is shown and "shredded" - in the following ]

Donald Trump sits alone. He hasn’t slept in 48 hours. [says who] At six a.m., perched high in the bronze-coated jewel of his empire, Trump Tower, he’s bent over a mammoth Brazilian-rosewood desk, scrutinizing spread sheets. No insomnia, no gnawing worries. [says who]

 “Pressure,” he surmises, sipping an iced Coke, “doesn’t upset my sleep,” a standard four hours nightly. “I like throwing balls into the air—and I dream like a baby.” 

[ video : "Juggling" ]

Three hours later, ... he announces, with standard chutzpah, his seven-and-a-half-billion-dollar bid to gobble down the nation’s premiere airline, American

[ ( "American airline" "Trump" October 6, 1989: "AMR Corp.", parent of giant American Airlines )  On the strength of his 120-dollar-a-share bid, the stock vaults from 16 dollars to 99 dollars. [ Donald's bid was considered "low" https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-airline-shuttle-transportation-pan-am-eastern-new-york-2019-1 : Title: "The rise and fall of Donald Trump's ... airline" 
]

 The ...  billionaire [born 1946], who owns huge blocks of American Airlines stock, smiles broadly.
 [ cite ? Indeed Donald's tax records & a New York Times story indicate Donald was not a "billionaire". ]
  

 A week later, with the market tumbling 190 points [ cite?], he withdraws his offer, perhaps temporarily. [ https://apnews.com/article/1fe31122dff234a19961c81f69812ea3 ]

Despite some reports that insinuated his American raid was only "cardboard", a ploy to rattle up his stock, Trump stares into space: “Nope. I want it.”

 [ Stock manipulation ? ]

Yup. If it’s the best, and it’s for sale, Donald Trump’s stomach begins to growl. 

He captured troubled Saudi financier Adnan Khashoggi’s onyx-and-gold-plated yacht for a mere $29,000,000—now it’s worth $100,000,000. [cite?]

Then he bought the Eastern Shuttle for $365,000,000 and transformed it overnight into the Trump Shuttle, complete with comfortable cabins and stewardesses rustling in virgin wool and pearls. [ cite? : https://www.wbur.org/politicker/2016/04/04/trump-shuttle-boston ]

A year earlier, he had bought the Plaza Hotel for $400,000,000 and is now lovingly restoring her without a name change. [ imploded 2021Plaza Hotel ]
 (  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Plaza_Hotel_and_Casino )  [ Why they call a ship a she ...  ]

"Her" [ the Plaza Hotel ] make-over will be supervised by the Czech mistress of Trump’s kingdom, Ivana, a former Olympic skier [not] and fashion model. 

At home, Ivana presides over a 100-room Trump Tower triplex, recently expanded from 50 rooms “Better closet space,” she jokes). [ now Melania's place ]

Trump, proud of the salmon-marbled atrium of Trump Tower, where no expense was spared, says, “I bought the whole damn mountain! You’ve never seen that color before. Ivana suggested it because it makes people look better.” [ 2017, new bills proposed to hold owners "accountable" ]

The couple also has a 47-room country house on ten acres in Greenwich, Connecticut, and the well-publicized 118-room Mar-a-Lago [Fire 1990]  Marjorie Merriweather Post estate in Palm Beach, their commute time shortened by the 727 jet ( 2013 article ) and the French-made military Puma helicopter.

The Trump Princess, or the Khashoggi “boat,” as Trump now calls it, has gotten cramped, so a Dutch shipyard is confecting not a Princess but a full-fledged Queen costing more than $175,000,000. [ "Queen" was canceled 1993 ]

Such ostentation, despite a catalog of charities and good deeds done for sick kids, has predictably yielded a rich crop of snipers. [ "Playing the TAX write-off game:  Trump's taxes reveal ... charity ]

Spy magazine, the New York—based humor monthly, cheerfully carries on a scabrous vendetta [IMAGE] against the Trumps, comparing them to Dickensian monsters. 

Time did a cover story on the decay of Atlantic City and chided Trump for helping create a crime-plagued urban blight divided between welfare cases and high rollers. 
 
https://time.com/search/?q=Atlantic%20City%20Trump&page=4 < Time Makes Everything Interesting & Fun - Even "The Donald" ]

On the Upper West Side, Manhattanites attack him for his proclaimed desire to build an enormous complex, Trump City, complete with a 150-story sky-scraper; 
[video - 1987] Phil Donahue charges that Trump’s casinos pillage the gullible; an aide close to outgoing mayor Ed Koch calls Trump “the most arrogant s.o.b. who has ever stepped onto the earth.” [ https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-campaign-president-marketing-ploy/story?id=13097770 : "huckster" : "
burnish the Trump name" ]

Ah, well. To be young, blond and a billionaire. It doesn’t seem to matter. The most daunting entrepreneur since the Astors, Vanderbilts and Whitneys, Donald John Trump has made his “art of the deal” work—not just for making money but for crushing adversaries, too. Case in point: Merv Griffin.

Ten months after Griffin bought Trump’s Resorts International Inc. for $365,000,000, for which Trump had paid $101,000,000 the year before, Griffin found himself holding a busted balloon. 

Not only had he inherited the hotel-casino’s $925,000,000 debt but he embarrassingly had to report first-half losses of $46,600,000. 

There’s now talk of a possible bankruptcy for Merv and a possible lawsuit against Trump. [this article 1989]

Looking beyond his one-billion-dollar Taj Mahal opening in Atlantic City next month, Trump has plenty to consider.
[
1988 https://pressofatlanticcity.com/gallery/thirty-years-ago-today-trump-taj-mahal-opened-its-doors-take-a-look-back/collection_d2f0c34c-b5ea-11e4-8dd7-b75a142ae16b.html#2 ]

There are rumors of his building casinos in Nevada and his buying Tiffany’s, NBC, the New York Daily News or the Waldorf Hotel
“I’ve got to have the Waldorf,” he coos jokingly into the phone. 

“I can’t sleep without it”. And the Presidency? No, that takes an election, and it is clear that Trump is not that patient. Too much to do!

The billion-dollar baby was born in the exclusive Jamaica Estates in Queens, New York, on June 14, 1946, to a mere millionaire, real-estate developer Fred Trump, who had racked up his $20,000,000 fortune building low-to-middle-priced homes and apartments in Brooklyn and Queens. 


 Among the five little Trumps, only Donald seemed to have a passion for mortar and bricks, riding around construction sites with his father [Fred Trump]- “who ruled all of us with a steel will”—and showing younger brother Robert, now a low-profile V.P. in the Trump organization, who was boss in their 23-room house

At the age of eight, little Donald borrowed Robert’s cherished toy blocks, glued them together into one giant skyscraper and never returned them, thereafter exercising his fantasies about changing Manhattan’s skyline. 

His father [[Fred Trump], who harped on the importance of “knowing how to make a buck,” regarded mop-haired Donald as “rough and wild,” shipped him off to the New York Military Academy ( 2015 filed for BK ) in Cornwall-on-Hudson and, some say, forever instilled in him a gnawing sense of inadequacy that fueled the boy’s ambition.

There followed two years at Fordham and two years at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance, then a few years diddling in middle-income housing [  "to get money from someone in a way that is not honest" ] until, at the age of 28, Trump delivered the punch that launched him

Taking a hard look at Manhattan’s troubled fortunes, he fastened onto the bankruptcy of the Penn Central Railroad as his ticket into the big time and nimbly plucked options on Penn’s Hudson River railroad yards, now [1989 ] the site of New York’s Convention Center, and its 59-year-old Commodore Hotel, now the Grand Hyatt [demolition]. 


SOURCE: https://www.metro-manhattan.com/blog/89-story-mixed-use-tower-set-to-replace-midtown-manhattans-grand-hyatt-by-2030/
"... In 1976, Donald Trump joined forces with the Hyatt chain and purchased the 2,000-key Commodore Hotel with the aid of a 40-year, $400 million property tax abatement. The asset was rebranded as a Grand Hyatt and underwent a $100 million upgrade that included a new mirror-glass facade and new interiors. However, after several legal battles and controversies, the Hyatt group purchased Donald Trump’s 50% share in the hotel in 1996, thus ending his involvement with the property.
 The Grand Hyatt New York was completely renovated in 2011, and the modern interiors were removed to bring back the timeless glamour of the original Commodore. However, this was not the end of the story for the hotel.   ..."



The coup was in his persuading bankers to lend him $80,000,000 and in talking politicians into awarding him a $120,000,000 tax abatement.
 
[  https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/prog.php?hq_id_sum=USA&page=3 ::   https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/nyregion/donald-trump-tax-breaks-real-estate.html?_r=0 ]

Persuasion, hype and chutzpah thereafter defined the Trump style, welded to a scrupulous management technique. [ GQ on Trump Style  ]

In 1979, at the age of 33, he snapped up the Fifth Avenue site of the old Bonwit Teller for $20,000,000, won a $140,000,000 tax abatement and three years later finished Trump Tower, a 68-story dazzler that includes a six-story atrium and today draws 100,000 visitors daily, with residents such as Johnny Carson [ video : "Not a billionaire" ]and Steven Spielberg [ video : "Post & Trump" ] .

Amassing a fortune his father never dreamed possible—a cash hoard of $900,000,000, a geyser of $50,000,000 a week from his hotel-casinos, assets thought to total 3.7 billion dollars—Trump soon became as captivated by "mystique-making" as by money-making. [ https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Greed ]

As the snooty ads running around New York proclaimed, “Everything does seem to be very Trump these days.”


https://www.pearsonhighered.com/assets/samplechapter/0/1/3/1/0131497340.pdf ] ...  PEARSON ON "THE DONALD" : tRUMP

"...  SOURCE: https://www.pearsonhighered.com/assets/samplechapter/0/1/3/1/0131497340.pdf

Donald J. Trump’s spacious office in Trump Tower on 57th Street and
Fifth Avenue in Manhattan is chock-a-block full of collector’s
items, action figures, building designs, and a movie poster parodying his
hit television show, The Apprentice. It is a roomful of memories, an ode
to the large-framed (6 foot, 3 inches) titan with the swept-backed blond
mane seated behind his oversize rectangular desk.

Surrounding him are
ceiling-high glass windows, through which appears a Manhattan skyline
on which Trump has placed an indelible stamp by erecting high-end
residential towers bearing his name.

On the walls hang glass-covered magazine covers, all adorned with
Trump’s face, another ode to the man of superlatives, the real-estate
developer cum casino owner cum television star who audaciously
engages in “truthful hyperbole” (his phrase), one of his numerous techniques for attracting public attention.

Many business leaders seek such attention, but few receive it. Trump
receives it in plentitude because millions of people delight in getting a
peek into a billionaire’s life—and he is very accommodating: Cheerfully, willingly, boastfully, he opens up his fantasy world of gilded mansions, sleek helicopters, lavishly accoutered jet planes, and beautiful women to
friends and business acquaintances (often the same), with stunning disregard for his own privacy.

 Trump is certainly not the wealthiest American; Microsoft’s co-founder Bill Gates is. ...

CHAPTER 1 HAVE YOU SEEN MY RATINGS?


By contrast, millions of people are interested in how Trump makes and spends money—and on whom.
Trump attracts attention because, even when he exaggerates, which is
often, he is not far from the mark. He wants to be known as the best and
the smartest—and, most important, the most popular. He often is the
best and the smartest. And that very fact gives him his special charm and
makes him an object of intense curiosity.

Normally, one would not be
curious about a man who openly engages in “truthful hyperbole,” who
constantly says he is the best in his field, and whose stadium-size ego
dwarfs the egos of so many humbler business leaders.

But one forgives
the exaggeration, knowing that he is the most important real-estate
developer in New York,

he is one of the major players in the gaming
industry, and he is a television star.

Unlike so many other business leaders, Donald Trump is comfortable
seeking and attracting personal publicity; he has no trouble letting millions of people into the seemingly private aspects of his life. Speaking to
a jewelry convention in October 2004, a group of total strangers to him, he spoke candidly of the problems of being engaged to a much younger
women. He told the jewelers that when his newly affianced Slovenianborn Melania Knauss, 33 years old, asked him when he graduated from
college, he replied, “Next question.” Of his ex-wife Marla, he said, “She
cost me a lot of money, but she’s a wonderful woman.”

And of his newly
engaged son, Donald Trump Jr., he noted, “He wants to give his fiancée
a ring that will cost $65,000. That seems cheap to me.”
The audience
loved the family disclosures, and Trump did not seem to mind divulging
them.
He insists that he does not pursue celebrity, that celebrity pursues
him.

Yet, better than anyone else in the business world, he shrewdly
understands the business value of bathing his persona in the klieg lights.

He is careful not to unveil every aspect of his business and personal
life. He happily puts his assets at $6 billion but offers few specifics on
how he arrives at that figure.

To document his holdings with too much
precision, he feels, would be tantamount to handing over a treasure trove
of intelligence to others who could then exact larger sums from Trump
in real-estate deals.

Whereas most business leaders detest personal publicity, Donald
Trump thrives on it and is superb at knowing how to attract it. He is so
good at what he does that some colleagues call him the greatest marketer
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around, or the greatest salesman in the world; but unlike others, who sell toothpaste and aircraft engines and software, Donald Trump sells himself as much as he sells his products. Therein lies his true uniqueness.

And, oh, how he knows how to sell himself.
 
Piles of newspaper and magazine articles, some of which Trump personally clips, sit on the desk. When he wants to illustrate a point, to buttress a claim, to cite a statistic, he quickly searches through the piles,
like a diver searching for buried treasure.

If he cannot find the article he
wants, he shouts explosively to an executive assistant outside his door:
“Rhona, bring me The Apprentice ratings,” or, “Robin, bring me the
best-seller listings.”

A clipping service locates articles in which his
name appears. He often sends these articles to acquaintances along with
a brief handwritten note explaining why he’s sending it. Some recipients
of these “Trump notes” cherish the thought; others (usually, they are
journalists) enjoy tossing the articles into the wastebasket.

 With lightning speed, Rhona or Robin appears with the requested article, their efficiency indicating that they know the boss’s routine. They
keep the often-requested ratings and best-seller listings close at hand
because he cannot wait to boast to visitors about his recent successes.

Virtually every conversation Trump holds on the phone or in person begins with him asking some variant of “Are you aware how popular
I am?”

SEVENTY-THIRD RICHEST IN AMERICA

It is the morning of June 3, 2004, 11 days short of Trump’s 58th birthday.
He is in an ebullient mood, and why should he not be?

He is, according to Forbes magazine, the 205th richest person in the world and the 73rd richest person in the United States.
He is pleased that, after much persuasion on his part, Forbes credits him with a net worth of $2.5 billion.

He would like Forbes to report that he is worth $6 billion, but unless he spells out all that he owns, the magazine’s editors will simply not make that leap.

Most of the superwealthy play down their true worth, eager
perhaps to ward off kidnappers or tax authorities, but not Trump: He
urges Forbes’ editors to use the highest amount possible.

In September
2004, Forbes credited Trump with $2.6 billion for 2004, making him the
74th richest man in the United States. For Donald Trump, the Forbes
designation seems to validate all that he has worked for the past
decade even though Forbes fell short of what Trump regards as his true
net worth.

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Never before has his career soared so high. In a few days, he will be the star attraction at the annual Donald Trump “birthday bash” put on at his Trump Taj Mahal casino hotel in Atlantic City to celebrate his
58th birthday, his newly affianced Melania by his side.

He has just returned from Ecuador, where his Miss Universe 2004 pageant topped all
key television ratings categories in its time slot, garnering 10.5 million
viewers.

Nothing gives him more pleasure, however, than the surprising
popularity of The Apprentice, his hit television reality show, which is
among the highest-rated entertainment shows of the 2003–2004 television season.

Finally, his latest book, Trump: How to Get Rich, the fifth
one he has penned in the last 17 years, is atop The New York Times business best-seller list.

That summer and fall of 2004 Donald Trump appeared to be everywhere. He refused to slow down, to take time off, or to lower his profile.

Business colleagues and friends advised him to cool it, insisting that the
public would tire of him. But he refused to heed their advice. They might
as well have asked him to dive off the roof of Trump Tower.

He knows all too well that he is at the top of his game. He was always
widely known and, at least in certain quarters, quite popular. But he has
now acquired a degree of fame that shocks him.

He genuinely believed
that he would do the television show for one season, have some fun
doing it, and then go on to the next project.

But, as he says about his
newly acquired superstardom, “This is ridiculous. This is amazing.”


All through the first season of The Apprentice (from January to April
2004) and in the months afterward, he chose to live life to the fullest,
giddily taking in everything it had to offer.

Trump knows that his sudden stardom is prompting all sorts of new possibilities for him. Every day
people want to partner with him, offering to provide a product if he
would provide his name, his persona, and his fame.

He might have turned them all away, saying he had no time or no
wish to have his name exploited so broadly. Instead, he chose to listen to
numerous proposals, to digest them, and then decide upon which ones to
endorse. He wanted to know the true value of his sudden superstardom—no timeouts for him. He often cited the classic song “Is That All
There Is?,” wondering what more life had to offer a man who seemingly
had already acquired or experienced all that there was.

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THE MULTITASKER

All this makes Trump seem like a man juggling a hundred balls in the
air at once—and loving every minute of it. At times, he complained that
he was overscheduled, that the excessive demands on him kept him on
the go far too much. “I’ve been out 23 nights in a row,” he said with
some exasperation one October evening in 2004, knowing full well that
he could have said no to most, if not all, of the events that required his
presence; deep down, he seemed to relish the attention and loved the frenetic pace of his life.
That fall, he was building nine buildings and two golf courses.

He was also laboring to breathe new life into his three Atlantic City casino hotels, trying to ease the financial burden on the casino hotel corporation, which faced a debt payment of $1.3 billion by 2006.

Although
newspaper accounts gave the impression that once again Trump faced
financial trouble, he exuded supreme confidence that he was about to
conclude “one of the most amazing deals I’ve ever done.”

He was shooting the third season of The Apprentice, appearing in
often-daily photo shoots, sometimes in his office at Trump Tower or on
the building’s roof. He knew that if ratings for the show dropped, his thus
far brief adventure in television would end abruptly. He clearly did not
want that to happen, finding the whole medium quite “infectious.”

Already he has agreed to produce a new television series called Trump Tower, a Dynasty-like soap opera with an actor playing the Donald Trump character (“I want someone very good looking,” he volunteered,
exhibiting the telltale signs of making a joke.)

From behind his desk, he conducts phone interviews with overseas
media, targeting countries where The Apprentice opens in the next few
months. Shocked and thrilled that he has become a household name in
the United States, he now wants to seize the international stage.
He is getting ready to launch his third book of the year, Trump: Think
Like a Billionaire: Everything You Need to Know About Success, Real
Estate, and Life. He has no qualms coming out with so many books in
one year, normally taboo in publishing. He argues that the publishers
come to him and offer him tons of money. How can he refuse? He is,
according to his publisher, Random House, the greatest-selling business
author ever; senior executives at the publishing house want Trump to
write yet another book. He confesses that he’s not sure he has much
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more to say, but he also admits that he probably will accede to the
request. He tells his co-author, Meredith McIver, to start taking notes for
yet another book project.
He is putting the finishing touches on his plan to build a Trump
Tower in Las Vegas. He has tried to gain a toehold in the gambling mecca
for years, but this is his first actual project. He loves the idea of erecting
a deluxe condo on the famous Las Vegas strip, but he is wincing at all
those New York–Las Vegas trips he will need to make on his 727 jet.
Though he flies often in his helicopter and jet plane, he professes no
great love of flying. He is a superbillionaire, but he is no jet-setter. He
prefers sitting behind his desk, juggling all those balls in the air.
If he has a hobby or an indulgence, it is the game of golf. A three- to
five-handicap golfer, he loves playing 18 holes at one of his golf courses,
mixing business with pleasure, keeping a watchful eye out for fallen
trees and overgrown grass even as he laces into that tiny white object.
Occasionally, he enters a specially designed “studio” at Trump Tower
to star in a television commercial, for which he is paid millions of dollars. Though he is a multibillionaire, he relishes the millions of dollars
he earns for these commercials, often referencing his father, Fred Trump,
who felt that anyone would be crazy to pass up such money. When an
unfriendly reporter asked Donald Trump why he alone among the fraternity of American billionaires did television commercials, Trump
replied that he did them because he was asked to do them—and they paid
a great deal of money. What he didn’t say, because he didn’t want to say
it in public, was that most of those in that exclusive fraternity would not
be asked!
To accommodate the seemingly endless demands on his time, Trump
has designed a number of board rooms within Trump Tower so that he is
only an elevator ride away from the necessary backdrop for the requested events. He is, he proudly proclaims, the most efficient person he
knows or knows of. He is efficient because, being Donald Trump, he can
command that anyone who wants his involvement has to show up at
Trump Tower.
Meeting with a writer one morning, he says he must interrupt the
conversation, but only for 15 minutes so he can meet with people seeking his approval to sell a Trump Pillow (he approves). He asks the writer
to wait outside his office. Sure enough, 15 minutes later, he emerges
from his office, introduces the Trump Pillow people to the writer, and
resumes the interview.
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By the end of the morning, Donald Trump might well have spoken to
50 people either on the telephone or in person. To each one, he seems on
cloud nine because, as he tells each one, he has the number one show on
television. “Have you seen my ratings?” he asks, ready to produce an
article on a second’s notice to read to the phone caller or office guest.
Nothing seems to faze him.
Only media attacks against him, perceived or real, big or small, bother
Trump. But there are fewer such assaults today than in the past, he happily reports, and if in the past he had trouble containing his anger, he is
now able to move on and cool off after a day or two. He knows now that
such attacks do not hurt his business; indeed, by adding to his notoriety,
they probably broaden his fame and, as perverse as he finds it, sell more
apartments.
But, knowing that even bad publicity might help him in business, he is
still a perfectionist; he still wants complete control over his image, so he
scrutinizes the media for unfriendly comments the way a young woman
might look for new blemishes on her face. He wants no blemishes.
THAT CLOUD-NINE FEELING
The cloud-nine feeling and the personal bruising were part and parcel of
Donald Trump’s complicated, intriguing persona during the summer and
fall of 2004.
For years, he had searched for acceptance as a great builder and developer. In the fall of 2004, he was getting the highest dollar per square foot
of any developer in New York. Apartments at his Park Avenue and 59th
Street property were getting $4,500 a square foot, the highest of its kind.
For years, he attached the name Trump to his buildings, all too aware
that it was a high-risk strategy: The financial failure of a building meant
a blow to his reputation. Today, he takes great satisfaction in knowing
that the strategy is paying off handsomely. Even the most cynical professionals in public relations and marketing congratulate him for being
among the best branding machines around.
Over the years, he has sought a kind of peace treaty, or at least a truce,
with the media, which tracked his career with a patronizing air, as if
Trump were some lesser specimen, worthy of mockery but not of praise.
Because he seemed a caricature of how a billionaire behaved, he was
covered in the media as if he was indeed a caricature and not a genuine,
serious business figure.
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Now in the summer and fall of 2004, the media is displaying new,
uncharacteristic warmth toward the man. Even when it covered Trump’s
financial misfortunes in Atlantic City during the summer, it ran
straightforward stories, accepting Trump’s point that the prepackaged
bankruptcy being prepared for his casino hotel corporation meant
smoother sailing for the casinos.
In earlier years, the media would have fired one missile after another
at Trump.
Cover stories on Donald Trump in 2004 were about the drama and
excitement of The Apprentice—not, as in the past, about how much he
was truly worth. Both Newsweek (March 1) and Fortune (April 26) put
Trump on their covers, focusing on the new television celebrity. “He’s
never been hotter (just ask him)…” was part of the headline on the April
26, 2004, Fortune cover.
Trump did not allow himself to get too smug over the media’s sudden
adulation. He knew it could be ephemeral. He worried about whether
the media coverage of his Atlantic City troubles might affect ratings for
the second season of The Apprentice, which started in September. He
randomly sampled opinions from office visitors and phone callers. The
general feeling was that the show’s ratings would remain high.
All throughout his career, Trump seemed transfixed by the kind of
stardom that came to entertainers or sports heroes or astronauts. But to
him, celebrity was a means to an end, not the end itself: He hoped that
whatever celebrity he gained would give him a business advantage.
Even before The Apprentice, he was well known.
In the spring of 2000, a Gallup Poll noted that 98 percent of Americans
knew who he was. (Bill Gates and Ross Perot also scored in the high 90s,
but Jack Welch, Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs, and Ted Turner were much
further down in the poll.) With The Apprentice, however, a whole new
slice of America has gotten to know him—especially youngsters 12 years
old and below. Trump senses that he is far better liked in 2004 among
the public than ever before.
So, what he has now is supercelebrity status with much less of the notoriety that attached itself to his reputation in the past. That stratospheric
status has brought him instant recognition whenever he walks along the
street. As he makes his way along Fifth Avenue, or anywhere, for that matter, in Manhattan, heads turn, passersby shout greetings, and small crowds
gather to stare. The greetings are friendly. “Trump,” shouted one African
watch-seller, giving Donald Trump a warm feeling and leading him to
wonder whether that might be the only English word the man knew.
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Trump and stardom have now become synonymous. Not surprisingly,
Donald Trump is just where he has always wanted to be: “It’s been an
amazing five years for me. It’s been by far the best five years in business
beyond The Apprentice.”
What has motivated Donald Trump through the years?
Was it, as some of his earlier critics suggested, greed?
Or perhaps it was the respect of his peers?
Or could it have been public acclaim?
He seems far more motivated by the struggle to build a fortune than
by the opportunity to use the accumulated items of wealth. He loves to
negotiate. He loves to make deals. He loves running a successful business, trying to expand it wherever possible. But most of all, he is motivated by a desire to nurture the one aspect of his life that is so unique
and so characteristic of him: the Trump brand.
If that means appearing in public as much as possible, that is fine with
him. If that means promoting all things that bear the name Trump, he is
comfortable with that. If it means exploring any idea that might expand
the Trump brand and, hence, deepen his fortune, he has time for that.
He is prepared to work zealously at pumping up the Trump brand
because he is all too aware of how difficult it was for him to make a genuine comeback. He is all too aware that, even as he showed an incredible
resilience in the early 1990s, erasing that huge debt and rebuilding his fortune, he had remained a marginal figure in the business world. He wanted
the public to honor his comeback and to treat him with new respect. But
even as he attracted attention—because he was, after all, famous, or, perhaps more accurately, infamous—he was still, even in the late 1990s, not
taken as seriously as he wished. His face did appear on magazine covers,
but, as often as not, he made the cover of the tabloids, not the business
magazines. Most books written about him were negative. The media stood
aloof from Trump, not quite sure what to make of him, not liking his alltoo-personal approach to public relations and never really falling in love
with him.
So he sought to improve his image, choosing a unique approach that
focused on himself.
Dating back to the mid-1970s, when he first entered the real-estate
business in Manhattan with a great flourish, attempting to rebuild one of
the city’s more important but crumbling landmarks, the Commodore
Hotel on 42nd Street next to Grand Central Station, Donald Trump
sought to build an image for himself that spoke of unalloyed success. He
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promised efficiently built edifices that spelled high quality and elegance.
“I’ve never seen anything he does that’s been second rate as far as money
can buy,” said developer Lou Cappelli. “He doesn’t cut corners. You may
not like the brass at Trump Tower because it’s too ostentatious, but it’s
the best that money can buy.”
He boldly chose to employ his name atop
his buildings even as close advisers thought
little of the gesture. But for Trump, this
kind of high-risk yet monumentally
powerful marketing technique represented
an in-your-face assertion of self-confidence
that was part and parcel of his ego-oriented
persona. Even his last name had a
Dickensian sound to it. Had the British
author created a character of massive
wealth that erected skyscrapers and lived in
high style, he might have given him the name Trump because it connotes strength and success. Trump loves the name for signifying those
qualities.
Other business personalities have sought to brand themselves, but no
one has had the temerity to put his or her own name on so many prominent landmarks: hotel casinos, high-priced residential towers, a shuttle
airline, a game, a bicycle race. An ad from Trump’s early days proclaimed, “Everything does seem to be very Trump these days.” And
indeed, it was. He had to swallow some ridicule for marketing himself as
if he were a bar of soap or a box of Corn Flakes.
But he sought to equate the Trump brand with high quality, and he
succeeded in most instances; for years, no business rival tried to emulate
his branding technique (in a kind of tribute to Trump’s success at
personal branding, Steve Wynn planned to open a casino hotel on the Las
Vegas strip in April 2005 and call it simply Wynn Las Vegas.)
Because so much of his business success depends on the value
attached to the Trump brand, he has had to make sure that the public has
only positive thoughts about the brand. To ensure those positive
thoughts, Trump has chosen a unique way of dealing with the media—
unique for business leaders, that is. He has decided to handle the media
himself.
Instead of relying on public-relations specialists either inside or outside his organization, he, in effect, has become his own public-relations
agency. Those specialists might from time to time advise him to steer
12 PART I • FORGING AN IMAGE
“He doesn’t cut
corners. You may
not like the brass at
Trump Tower
because it’s too
ostentatious, but it’s
the best that money
can buy.”
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clear of the media, and he did not want to heed such advice. More than
any other business leader of his era, he understood the business necessity of whipping up a public-relations storm around his name and his projects. As he wrote in his 2004 book, How to Get Rich, “If you don’t tell
people about your success, they probably won’t know about it.”
By thrusting himself into the public
spotlight, Donald Trump differentiated
himself from all other business leaders of
his time. Caution and shyness were not
part of his DNA. He fervently believed that
the burnishing of his ego was critical to his
business success. And he burnished it on a
regular basis: “Billionaire authors are harder to find … than millionaire authors,” he
boasted in his 2004 book, How to Get Rich.
“Billionaire authors with interests in real estate, gaming, sports, and
entertainment are rarer still. And billionaire authors with their own
Manhattan skyscrapers and hit prime time TV series are the rarest of
all.”
Most business figures have peanut-size egos—or, if they have large
egos, they are eager to conceal them, believing that the very act of parading themselves in public is a flamboyance that might prove bad for business; they also feel that self-glorification is a sin that only distracts from
the selling of the company’s product. In stark contrast, Donald Trump
believes firmly in a nexus between the forging of his ego—his image—
and his success in business.
To initially forge his ego, he felt he had to open up to the world, to
nurture a persona that was of interest to the public. In doing so, he had
to reveal himself in a way that other business figures rarely did. He had
to exhibit a good deal of his lifestyle to the public, be accessible to the
media, and deliver colorful yet pithy quotes.
Other business leaders exhibited much restraint in their public statements, not wanting to cause even the slightest discomfort to shareholders. Trump, with less than 1 percent of his net worth tied up in a public
company (which controlled his casino hotels), had no such concerns,
openly calling people idiots and, worse, cursing routinely, exhibiting
bouts of anger and fire and passion, making fun of himself.
If most of his business colleagues wanted to avoid the public spotlight,
Donald Trump seemed to be perfectly comfortable with it.
CHAPTER 1 • HAVE YOU SEEN MY RATINGS? 13
“…billionaire
authors with their
own Manhattan skyscrapers and hit
prime time TV
series are the rarest
of all.”
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The media responded to Trump’s openness and flamboyance by covering his business achievements to a certain degree, but by monitoring
his personal life far more passionately and aggressively. Because he invited the media to cover him, he seemed to be open game, and almost any
aspect of his personal life hit the newspapers. When second wife Marla
Maples was quoted in the newspapers as saying that Donald Trump gave
her the best sex she ever had, it was a front-page headline.
He had no way of knowing where his self-promotion might lead, only
that he wanted to be accepted (by whom was always an open question),
to be taken seriously, and to be given full credit for his accomplishments.
Thus, the marketing of his persona became a major business strategy for
him, a strategy tailor-made for his unrelenting egocentrism. He needed
to be seen and heard at every possible time and place. Hence, he saw no
value in limiting his exposure.
Trump’s operation was small (20,000 employees) in comparison to the
large corporations; it was highly segmented and depended entirely on the
man at the top. It was no accident that the main business strategies
Donald Trump adopted had to do with managing his own persona and
building his celebrity.
There are, of course, important business lessons to be gleaned from
the way Trump behaves. Because he spends so much time negotiating,
many of those lessons have to do with how best to negotiate. And
because Trump advertises himself as a highly competent money
machine, he has ample advice on “how to get rich” and how to “think
like a billionaire” and, when things got tough, how to make a comeback.
His most novel business lessons are those that encourage executives to
burnish their egos and trumpet their achievements in public; these are
not lessons that most business leaders will find easy to adopt. But they
have worked for Donald Trump.
What the story of Donald Trump offers to other business executives is
a roadmap of how to succeed in business by not being afraid of seeking
out and taking advantage of the public spotlight. Most business leaders
have an inherent aversion to that spotlight—but by watching Trump in
action and understanding the way he turns the quest for publicity and the
nurturing of his personal brand into successful business strategies, other
business leaders might become a little more willing to make the media
and other means of communication work for them in a positive way.
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A UNIQUE FIGURE
It is Trump’s unabashed willingness to be so public a figure that makes
him unique on the business landscape.
Cautious, even mistrustful of the media, other business leaders openly worry that merely granting an interview might arouse jealousy among
colleagues. They wince when magazines put their faces on covers. They
eschew television. Despite the marketing power inherent in such major
media outlets, these leaders think it best to keep low profiles. Even as
these people made the magazine lists of the most powerful and most
influential, few know their names outside of the business world. When
Fortune magazine published its “Power 25: The Most Powerful People in
Business” on August 9, 2004, the top 10 were, in order of importance,
Lee Scott, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Jeff Immelt, Rupert Murdoch,
Michael Dell, Chuck Prince, Ned and Abby Johnson, Sam Palmisano,
and Hank Greenberg. Were any of them to walk down the street, few
would recognize them, with the possible exception of Gates.
Donald Trump did not make that list. But when he walked up Fifth
Avenue nine days after the Fortune list appeared, nearly every passerby
recognized him. And he had labored hard to attain such a status.
It was no accident that before he embarked on his business career, he
toyed with the idea of entering the film world, dreaming of becoming a
Hollywood mogul. He abandoned that dream, but he could not stop
being a promoter, a marketer, an entertainer. To understand how Donald
Trump functions in business, one should think of him not necessarily as
an entertainer, but rather as someone with the skills of an entertainer.
Neither he nor some of those who work with him on The Apprentice
like to hear him described as an actor, perhaps because to do so might
appear to denigrate his business acumen. Yet he certainly employs the
same skills of an entertainer—especially an actor—and he gets very far
with those skills.
In promoting his products—his real estate and his casinos—he has as
much stage presence and as much self-confidence in front of an audience
as many actors in Hollywood. In working out the details of a negotiation,
he acts out the role of victim (“Hey, your price is way too high”) with
skills that seem to be honed in some acting school. He is not at all
embarrassed to be called a showman; after all, as he has commented
often, he enjoys injecting show business into the real-estate world.
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In his own phrase, Donald Trump was “hot” and he did not want to
let it go. He was certainly the hottest new star on television, and he got
a great kick out of comments that he was helping NBC in the same way
that the cast of Friends had lifted the network. The surge to the top made
him no less immodest: He eagerly told friends that they (the cast of
Friends) are six people, while he was one person: “They are on for 30
minutes; I’m on for an hour.” He relished it when Jeff Zucker, the president of the NBC Universal Television Group, joked in front of thousands attending an NBC publicity gathering that Jennifer Anniston
might have better hair than Donald Trump, but he was getting higher
ratings.
Oh, how he was enjoying the stardom. When Harvey Weinstein,
whom Donald Trump referred to as the biggest producer in Hollywood,
told him he was the largest star in Weinstein’s town and no one else was
even close, Trump repeated the comment to his closest 1,000 friends. He
was a true entertainer now, so a little harmless hyperbole would not
hurt, he was sure, so rather than note accurately that he was the biggest
star of reality television, he took a slight liberty and described himself as
the biggest star on television. No one questioned that statement. There
seemed little purpose—he was soaring through the heavens, and he loved
the altitude.
If anyone required proof that Donald Trump during that summer and
fall of 2004 had attained a degree of acceptance and popularity that was,
even for him, beyond his wildest dreams, there he was, seated behind his
desk suddenly reaching for a copy of the Palm Beach Post. He opened the
newspaper to a full-page article on him and The Apprentice, and then
proudly proclaimed that he had made “the bible,” as Palm Beach royalty call it. Here was another moment for him to savor: “Now what do you
think of all the bluebloods of Palm Beach when they see this (article)?
They get sick to their stomachs. They say, ‘I can’t fuckin’ believe this.’”
It was Donald Trump’s colorful way of saying, “I made it. I finally
made it.”
This was Donald Trump in 2004, conscious of how close he had come
to the edge of financial disaster in the early 1990s, vowing that he would
never let that recur, and thrilled at becoming a superstar.
How had all this happened?
How had so many facets of American society—the business world, the
media, the world of society, the entertainment world, and, last but not
least, the world of young people—after marginalizing Donald Trump for
so long, now have turned him into a household word?
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How had Donald Trump gone from that neophyte real-estate guy hoping to make a big splash in Manhattan real-estate to one of the most
famous people in the country?
How had he gone from the mainstream media’s gossip columns and
the tabloids’ front pages to nearly iconic status, author of the most
famous two-word phase in the America of 2004 (“You’re fired”)?
Finally, why are so many people from all slices of life—young and old,
rich and poor—interested in this man?
This book deals with these questions.
The first part of this book looks at the way Donald Trump works and
what he is like personally.
The second part covers his childhood years and his early forays into
real estate in Manhattan.
The third part focuses on his conquest of the Atlantic City world, his
subsequent fall, and his comeback.
The fourth part takes a careful look at how he employed his skills in
promotion and marketing and public relations to burnish his image.
The final chapters examine in some depth Donald Trump’s achievement of household name status through The Apprentice and his willingness to exploit his new status by embarking on a whole new set of
media-oriented initiatives aimed at keeping his name before the public.
We begin with a behind-the-scenes look at the way Donald Trump
works.
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  ..."


There are his residential buildings, Trump Parc and Trump Plaza and the soon-to-be-finished Trump Palace; 

Trump Castle in Atlantic City and the soon-to-be-finished Taj Mahal; 

his book Trump: The Art of the Deal, written with Tony Schwartz, which held on to the number-one spot, 
 on the New York Times best-seller list longer than any business book since Iacocca; his high-rise board game named—you guessed it—Trump (reported to be a flop); 

his upcoming TV game show—you guessed it again—Trump Card; 

and the bike race named Tour de Trump, which, as he points out, sure beats its old name—Tour de Jersey. And—well—you get the picture.

“Vision is my best asset,” he says without a shred of modesty. “I know what sells and I know what people want.”

Along the way, Trump even found time to attend the 1976 Montreal Olympics, marry his match, Ivana Zelnicek (who has vowed never to look a day over 29), and produce his own little Trumps—Donald, Jr., 12, Ivanka, eight, and Eric, six.

Notwithstanding the good fortune that seems to have attended Trump’s business moves, he and his family have not escaped life’s darker side. 

While sisters Maryanne, a Federal judge in New Jersey, and Elizabeth, an administrative assistant for Chase Manhattan, have found their niches, Trump’s older brother, Fred, hated the real-estate business, became an airline pilot took to drink and died an alcoholic in 1981 at 43.

Trump was also recently shaken when, last October, three key executives died in a helicopter crash; the boss reportedly narrowly missed death, deciding at the last minute that he was too busy to travel. 

“I never realized,” says Trump today, “how deaths outside the family could have such a profound effect on me. It’s a tragic waste.” 

As for himself, he’s fatalistic: “I work, I don’t worry and I protect myself as well as anybody can. But ultimately we all end up going to hopefully greener pastures.”

To check out his present-day pastures, we sent New York Daily News celebrity interviewer and syndicated columnist Glenn Plaskin to talk with him. 

This interview had long been in the works, including two earlier starts. But Plaskin finally got Trump to sit down with him over a period of nearly 16 weeks. 

His report:

“For our first session at Trump Tower, after being visually frisked by a troop of basketball-player-tall bodyguards, I entered the inner sanctum. 
There was Donald Trump, as he would be for most of our sessions, slumped behind the cinnamon-colored desk, slung comically low in his chair, clipping his fingernails. ‘I think best this way,’ he’d deadpan.

“As the weeks went by, I found I liked, poking through the hooded dare-me eyes with rapid-fire changes of topic, watching for surprise. 

Often he parried with rehearsed answers, but we spent enough time together that we entered genuinely fresh territory. 

When I asked for his stand on abortion, he frowned, pouted and asked me to turn the recorder off. 
 He didn’t really have an opinion—what the hell was mine? It was a very human moment.

“Supervising his office like an exceedingly well-run vaudeville show, executive assistant Norma Foerderer would wander in with another gold-framed magazine cover to put up on his wall—or with a seven-pound cheese-cake or a stuffed skunk. 

Trump would take calls during our interview—never for more than a few minutes—that invariably ended with, ‘Okay, baby, you’re the greatest.’ 

Then secretary Rhona Graff would walk in, bearing little yellow slips of paper announcing calls waiting: down-on-his-luck financier Adnan Khashoggi, asking to have lunch; a hotel executive, dickering to sell yet another big hotel…. By the time Duchess Fergie called about borrowing his brand-new accident-proof helicopter, and Don Johnson to borrow his city-size yacht, I was dizzy.

“To get away from it all, we began our first session hovering above the East River in the cobalt Darth Vader helicopter. 

Donald Trump was strapped into taupe leather, good-naturedly hyping his empire below.”

You aren’t known for being shy at promotion; let’s start by playing a little game. Trump Tower is…? The finest residential building anywhere.

The Taj Mahal in Atlantic City is going to be…? The most spectacular hotel-casino anywhere in the world.

And the Trump Shuttle will be…? Easily the number-one service to Washington and Boston.

Your apartment sales are…? The best. Trump Tower and Trump Parc have seventy percent of the top sales in New York per square foot.

Why?
Simple: People know they’re going into a building where no expense is spared, where the level of materials and finishes will be the best, where the location will be the best. Many European and Japanese investors literally give their subordinates instructions to buy apartments only in Trump buildings. A Japanese investor just paid me twenty million bucks for seven apartments he’s turning into one.

Okay. But here we are at the start of a new decade. How do you respond when people call you ostentatious, ego-ridden and a greedy symbol of the Eighties?

Rich men are less likely to like me, but the working man likes me because he knows I worked hard and didn’t inherit what I’ve built. Hey, I made it myself; I have a right to do what I want with it.

With so much poverty on the city streets, isn’t it embarrassing for you to flaunt your wealth?
There has always been a display of wealth and always will be, until the depression comes, which it always does. And let me tell you, a display is a good thing. It shows people that you can be successful. It can show you a way of life. Dynasty did it on TV. It’s very important that people aspire to be successful. The only way you can do it is if you look at somebody who is.

And for you, sitting snugly inside the one hundred and eighteen rooms of your Palm Beach mansion——
People understand that the house in Florida is business. I use it very seldom. I could be happy living in a studio apartment.

Oh, come on.
I mean it; the houses, the planes and the boat are just investments. 
 I paid twenty-nine million dollars for the Khashoggi yacht; two years later, I’ll be selling it for more than one hundred million dollars and getting a bigger one.

Why in the world do you need a bigger yacht?
I don’t. But the Khashoggi boat is worth more only if I sell it. This new one will—believe it or not—be even more spectacular and bring tremendous acclaim to Trump properties in Atlantic City.

What is it that attracts you to all this glitz?
I have glitzy casinos because people expect it; I’m not going to build the lobby of the IBM office building in Trump Castle. Glitz works in Atlantic City, and yet the Plaza Hotel has been brought back to its original elegance of 1907. So I don’t use glitz in all cases. And in my residential buildings, I sometimes use flash, which is a level below glitz.

Then what does all this—the yacht, the bronze tower, the casinos—really mean to you?
Props for the show.

And what is the show?
The show is Trump and it is sold-out performances everywhere. I’ve had fun doing it and will continue to have fun, and I think most people enjoy it.

Do you think the ones who hate it are jealous?
They could be whatever—but the vast majority dig it.

Calvin Klein, who doesn’t have a fraction of your wealth, has often said he feels guilty about his. Do you?
It’s not overriding, but I do have it.

You don’t sound guilty at all.
I do have a feeling of guilt. I’m living well and like it, I know that many other people don’t live particularly well. I do have a social consciousness. I’m setting up a foundation; I give a lot of money away and I think people respect that. The fact that I built this large company by myself—working people respect that; but the people who are at high levels don’t like it. They’d like it for themselves.

Do you see yourself as greedy?
I don’t think I’m greedy. If I were, I wouldn’t give to charities. 
 I run the Wollman Skating Rink in New York City for nothing and I gave away the royalties from my book. I give millions for charity each year. If I were really greedy….

You mean like Leona Helmsley, the convicted hotel queen?
Yes, like Leona Helmsley. She is a vicious, horrible woman who systematically destroyed the Helmsley name. I know Leona better than anybody does but Harry [Helmsley]. If Harry had one fault, it was giving her too much leeway.

When I was twenty, Harry was the big guy in town. I once drove my car down the street in Manhattan, saw him at a corner, stopped and introduced myself and offered him a ride. When I pulled over on the left side of the street, with traffic on the right, he asked me to get out of the car so he could get out on the left side. I thought to myself, This is a highly conservative guy. He never would have evaded taxes on his own. But Leona pushed and pushed him. He needed that money like you need fifty-six cents in your pockets, I’m telling you.

Also, Leona was not a great business-woman but a very bad one. She sold me the St. Moritz Hotel and a few years later, I made more than a hundred million dollars on it. She ran that hotel badly. She set the women’s movement back fifty years. She is a living nightmare, and to be married to her must be like living in hell.

I think any man enjoys flirtations, and if he said he didn’t, he’d be lying or he’d be a politician trying to get the extra four votes.

On the other hand, your wife, Ivana, is doing a great job running the Plaza, right?
Well, I have told Ivana, “Whatever Leona would do, do the opposite. [Laughs] Be nice to everybody.” And she is nice, anyway.

Was it simple greed with Leona?
Much more than greed. She’s out of her mind. Leona Helmsley is a truly evil human being. She treated employees worse than any human being I’ve ever witnessed and I’ve dealt with some of the toughest human beings alive.

What do you do to stay in touch with your employees?
I inspect the Trump Tower atrium every morning. Walk into it … it’s perfect; everything shines. I go down and raise hell in a nice way all the time because I want everything to be absolutely immaculate. I’m totally hands-on. I get along great with porters and maids at the Plaza and the Grand Hyatt. I’ve had bright people ask me why I talk to porters and maids. I can’t even believe that question. Those are the people who make it all work…. If they like me, they will work harder … and I pay well.

You lost some valued employees in a recent helicopter crash.
Yes. I lost not only brilliant, key players in my company but true friends—and I couldn’t believe it. At first, I was shocked, called their wives, just kept functioning…. My own sense of optimism and life was greatly diminished. I never realized how deaths outside the family could have such a profound effect on me.

What did you think when the shock wore off?
[Pauses] It’s a tragic waste. I was also angry in that it was an event that I didn’t want to happen. Here was this press conference, a very mediocre event announcing a minor boxing match. I told these guys that they didn’t need to go, but they wanted to be there…. They gave their lives for something so unimportant. It’s been a rough time. [Pauses]

What do you think of rich people in general?
Rich people are great survivors and, by nature, they fall into two categories—those who have inherited and those who’ve made it. Those who have inherited and chosen not to do anything are generally very timid, afraid of losing what they’ve got, and who can blame them? Others are great risk takers and produce a hell of a lot more or go bust.

As Merv Griffin did? After buying Resorts International from you, the company may be facing bankruptcy. What happened there?
Merv is a good guy who I have really just gotten to know; we were both judges on the Miss America Pageant after our deal. I don’t want to bug him, but prior to buying Resorts, he was telling everybody what a great deal he made and, by inference, what a bad deal Trump made.

But, in fact, you didn’t make such a bad deal.
Well, let’s just say he didn’t out-Trump Trump. He has a huge amount of debt. But he is very efficient and has very good PR people. 
Business Week wrote a story titled "How Donald Taught Merv the Art of the Deal". I was angry. And equally angry when People and Time magazines, with no goddamned research and no knowledge, incompetently reported that Merv had bested Donald. Can you imagine? They didn’t do any research. They just listened to PR people. Well, now they know the truth and have asked about following up or correcting stories. I said, “Forget it—it doesn’t matter.”

What satisfaction, exactly, do you get out of doing a deal?
I love the creative process. I do what I do out of pure enjoyment. Hopefully, nobody does it better. There’s a beauty to making a great deal. It’s my canvas. And I like painting it ... I like the challenge and tell the story of the coal miner’s son. The coal miner gets black-lung disease, his son gets it, then his son. If I had been the son of a coal miner, I would have left the damn mines. But most people don’t have the imagination—or whatever—to leave their mine. They don’t have “it.”

Which is?
“It” is an ability to become an entrepreneur, a great athlete, a great writer. You’re either born with it or you’re not. Ability can be honed, perfected or neglected. The day Jack Nicklaus came into this world, he had more innate ability to play golf than anybody else.

... 

You obviously have a lot of self-confidence. How do you use that in a business deal?
I believe in positive thinking, but I also believe in the power of negative thinking. You should prepare for the worst. If I’m doing a deal, I want to know how bad it’s going to be if everything doesn’t work rather than how good it’s going to be. I have a positive outlook, but I’m unfortunately also quite cynical. So if all the negatives happened, what would my strategy be? Would I want to be in that position? If I don’t, I don’t do the deal. My attitude is to focus on the down side because the up side will always take care of itself. If a deal is going to be great, it’s just a question of, How much am I going to make?

How far are you willing to push adversaries?
I will demand anything I can get. When you’re doing business, you take people to the brink of breaking them without having them break, to the maximum point their heads can handle—without breaking them. That’s the sign of a good businessman: Somebody else would take them fifteen steps beyond their breaking point.

What if your pushing results in losing the deal?
Then I pushed him too far. I would have made a mistake. But I don’t. I push to the maximum of what he can stand and I get a better deal than he gets.

Another aspect of your deal making is how you handle the media. You managed to suppress an unflattering TV documentary about you funded by your archnemesis, [New York businessman and publisher] Leonard Stern. Do you also claim victory over him?
Total victory, yes. But I don’t want to dwell on triumph or defeat.

That may sound magnanimous, but, in fact, you’re known to exact revenge on people you think have tried to pull something on you.
I think I’m fair, not tough, in business. But if somebody is trying to do an injustice to me, I fight back harder than anybody I know. When somebody tries to harm you or your family, you have an absolute right to fight back.

Do you hate Stern?
No. Stern is a nonentity to me. He obviously dislikes me enough to spend close to a million dollars trying to make a negative documentary

You have a lot of enemies in New York City, among them a group that opposes your building a huge Trump City on the Hudson that will include the world’s tallest building—on the theory that it will ruin the West Side and cause unbearable congestion. What do you say to them?
Point one: There were more people living on the West Side of New York in the Forties than there are today. Very few people understand that. 
Point two: Trump City is going to be an architectural masterpiece. 
Point three: The city desperately needs the taxes, the housing and the shopping that will produce billions of dollars in revenue. Yet that community group [West Pride] fights every job.

Those people fight for the sake of fighting. I honestly believe that if I proposed an eighty-acre park, they would come out and fight me. Selfishly, they like what they have and don’t want to give it to anybody else. We need another Rockefeller Center—especially now that Mitsubishi has bought most of the one we had.

Among other things, West Pride claims the largest building in the world would cast a mammoth shadow across the West Side, blocking out light and wrecking the ambience of the neighborhood.
[Angrily] Every building casts a shadow, for God’s sake! I want this job to be dramatic. I strive for that. I don’t want it to be contextual, blending into everything else. It shouldn’t be like getting a haircut and telling the barber I don’t want anyone to know I’ve gotten one. I am competing here with the state of New Jersey, which is sucking the life-blood out of New York City. They’re beating us up. Trump City would take the play away from the development of the New Jersey waterfront. There will be nothing in New York to compete with Trump City!

So you’re going to build it, come what may?
I’ll build it, though it may not be now. I’ll wait until things get bad in the city, because every city in every nation has its ups and downs. If I had tried to get the zoning for Trump City in 1975, I would have gotten everything I wanted, because the city was absolutely at a low point. I may now wait for construction to stop, for interest rates to go up—then the city will desperately need Trump City.

You often say that the key to your success is being a good deal maker and a good manager. Why?
I’ve seen great deal makers go down the tubes because they haven’t known how to manage what they’ve had. Take [Saudi financier indicted for a felony] Adnan Khashoggi: He was a great deal maker but a bad businessman. Time will tell if Merv is a good manager. He is going to have to be.

When you were growing up in Queens, your father was supposedly a harsh taskmaster. It has been theorized that your father instilled in you a great sense of inadequacy. True?
That’s one hundred percent wrong. I was always very much accepted by my father. He adored Donald Trump and I’ve always known that. But I did want to prove to my father and other people that I had the ability to be successful on my own.

You’ve often said that your father made you work as a teenager and taught you the value of the buck.
My father never made me work. I liked to work during summers. I don’t understand these teenagers who sit home watching television all day. Where’s their appetite for competition? Working was in my genes.

Still, your father was one tough son of a bitch, wasn’t he?
He was a strong, strict father, a no-nonsense kind of guy, but he didn’t hit me. It wasn’t what he’d ever say to us, either. He ruled by demeanor, not the sword. And he never scared or intimidated me.

Your older brother, Fred, who died from heart failure brought on by acute alcoholism, had a more difficult time with him, didn’t he?
Take one environment and it will work completely differently on different children. Our family environment, the competitiveness, was a negative for Fred. It wasn’t easy for him being cast in a very tough environment, and I think it played havoc on him.

I was very close to him and it was very sad when he died … toughest situation I’ve had….

What did you learn from his experience?
[Pauses] Nobody has ever asked me that. But his death affected everything that has come after it…. I think constantly that I never really gave him thanks for it. He was the first Trump boy out there, and I subconsciously watched his moves.

And the lesson?
I saw people really taking advantage of Fred and the lesson I learned was always to keep up my guard one hundred percent, whereas he didn’t. He didn’t feel that there was really reason for that, which is a fatal mistake in life. People are too trusting. I’m a very untrusting guy. I study people all the time, automatically; it’s my way of life, for better or worse.

Why?
I am very skeptical about people; that’s self-preservation at work. I believe that, unfortunately, people are out for themselves. At this point, it’s to many people’s advantage to like me. Would the phone stop ringing, would these people kissing ass disappear if things were not going well?

I enjoy testing friendship…. Everything in life to me is a psychological game, a series of challenges you either meet or don’t. I am always testing people who work for me.

How?
I will send people around to my buyers to test their honesty by offering them trips and other things. I’ve been surprised that some people least likely to accept a trip from a contractor did and some of the most likely did not. You can never tell until you test; the human species is interesting in that way. So to me, friendship can be really tested only in bad times.

I instinctively mistrust many people. It is not a negative in my life but a positive. Playboy wouldn’t be talking to me today if I weren’t a cynic. So I learned that from Fred, and I owe him a lot…. He could have ultimately been a happy guy, but things just went the unhappy way.

How large a role does pure ego play in your deal making and enjoyment of publicity?
Every successful person has a very large ego.

Every successful person? Mother Teresa? Jesus Christ?
Far greater egos than you will ever understand.

And the Pope?
Absolutely. Nothing wrong with ego. People need ego, whole nations need ego. I think our country needs more ego, because it is being ripped off so badly by our so-called allies; i.e., Japan, West Germany, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, etc. They have literally out "egotized" this country, because they rule the greatest money machine ever assembled and it’s sitting on our backs. Their products are better because they have so much subsidy.

We Americans are laughed at around the world for losing a hundred and fifty billion dollars year after year, for defending wealthy nations for nothing, nations that would be wiped off the face of the earth in about fifteen minutes if it weren’t for us. Our “allies” are making billions screwing us.

How do you feel about Japan’s economic pre-eminence?
Japan gets almost seventy percent of its oil from the Persian Gulf, relies on ships led back home by our destroyers, battleships, helicopters, frog men. Then the Japanese sail home, where they give the oil to fuel their factories so that they can knock the hell out of General Motors, Chrysler and Ford. Their openly screwing us is a disgrace. Why aren’t they paying us? The Japanese cajole us, they bow to us, they tell us how great we are and then they pick our pockets. We’re losing hundreds of billions of dollars a year while they laugh at our stupidity.

The Japanese have their great scientists making cars and VCRs and we have our great scientists making missiles so we can defend Japan. Why aren’t we being reimbursed for our costs? The Japanese double-screw the U.S., a real trick: First they take all our money with their consumer goods, then they put it back in buying all of Manhattan. So either way, we lose.

You’re opposed to Japanese buying real estate in the U.S.?
I have great respect for the Japanese people and list many of them as great friends. But, hey, if you want to open up a business in Japan, good luck. It’s virtually impossible. But the Japanese can buy our buildings, our Wall Street firms, and there’s virtually nothing to stop them. In fact, bidding on a building in New York is an act of futility, because the Japanese will pay more than it’s worth just to screw us. They want to own Manhattan.

Of course, I shouldn’t even be complaining about it, because I’m one of the big beneficiaries of it. If I ever wanted to sell any of my properties, I’d have a field day. But it’s an embarrassment, I give great credit to the Japanese and their leaders, because they have made our leaders look totally second rate.

A group of Japanese visitors to New York was recently asked if there were anything in the U.S. they would like to buy. The answer: towels.
That’s fair trade: They’ll take the towels and we’ll buy their cars. It doesn’t sound like a good deal to me. They have totally outsmarted the American politician; they have no respect for us, because they’re getting a free ride. Of course, it’s not just the Japanese or the Europeans—the Saudis, the Kuwaitis walk all over us.

The Arabs also spend plenty of money in your casinos, don’t they?
They lose a million, two million at the tables and they’re so happy because they had such a great weekend. If you lost a million dollars, you’d be sick for the rest of your life, maybe. They write me letters telling me what a wonderful time they had.

You have taken out full-page ads in several major newspapers that not only concern U.S. foreign trade but call for the death penalty, too. Why?
Because I hate seeing this country go to hell. We’re laughed at by the rest of the world. In order to bring law and order back into our cities, we need the death penalty and authority given back to the police. I got fifteen thousand positive letters on the death-penalty ad. I got ten negative or slightly negative ones.

You believe in an eye for an eye?
When a man or woman cold-bloodedly murders, he or she should pay. It sets an example. Nobody can make the argument that the death penalty isn’t a deterrent. Either it will be brought back swiftly or our society will rot away. It is rotting away.

For a man so concerned about our crumbling cities, some would say you’ve done little for crumbling Atlantic City besides pull fifty million dollars a week out of tourists’ pockets.
Elected officials have that responsibility. I would hate to think that people blame me for the problems of the world. Yet people come to me and say, “Why do you allow homelessness in the cities?” as if I control the situation. I am not somebody seeking office.

What about using your influence in Atlantic City to help the disadvantaged?
Everybody has influence, but it is a governmental problem. I take out those ads to wake up the government about how Japan and others are ripping our country apart—

Wait. Doesn’t it seem that with all your influence in Atlantic City you could do more to combat crime and corruption and put something back into the community?
Well, crime and prostitution go up, and Atlantic City administrations are into very deep trouble with the law, and there are lots of problems there, no question about it. But there is a tremendous amount of money going to housing from the profits of the casinos.

As somebody who runs hotels, all I can do, when you get right down to it, is run the best places, bring in as much money as possible, which in turn goes out for taxes. I contribute millions a year to various charities. Finally, by law, I’m not allowed to have governmental influence; but if they passed legislation that allowed me to get more involved, I’d be very happy to do it. In the meantime, I have the most incredible hotels in the world in Atlantic City. The Taj Mahal will be beyond belief. And if I can awaken the government of Atlantic City, I have performed a great service.

We’ve talked about building low-income housing; what have you done about that in other locations?
I did that during the years I worked with my father; I did build both low-income housing and housing for the elderly. And now I’m going to be building more of it. The problem is, that stuff never gets written about.

”If I had been the son of a coal miner, I would have left the damn mines. But most people don’t have the imagination—or whatever—to leave their mine. They don’t have ‘it.’”

On the other hand, you were invited to consider building a luxury hotel in Moscow a few years ago. What was your trip to Moscow like?
It was not long after the Korean plane was shot down over Russia. There I am up in my plane when my pilot announces, “We are now flying over the Soviet Union,” and I’m thinking to myself, What the hell am I doing here?

Then I look out the window and see two Russian fighter planes … I later found out, guiding us in. I had insisted on having two Russian colonels flying with me—I felt safer, and my pilot doesn’t speak great Russian, which is putting it mildly, and I didn’t want problems in radio communications.

Once you got to Moscow, how did the negotiations go?
I told them, “Guys, you have a basic problem. Far as real estate is concerned, it’s impossible to get title to Russian land, since the government owns it all. What kind of financing are you gonna get on a building where the land is owned by the goddamned motherland?”

They said, “No problem, Mr. Trump. We will work out lease arrangements.”

I said, “I want ownership, not leases.”

They came up with a solution: “Mr. Trump, we form a committee with ten people, of which seven are Russian and three are your representatives, and all disputes will be resolved in this manner.”

I thought to myself, Shit, seven to three—are we dealing in the world of the make-believe here or what?

What were your other impressions of the Soviet Union?
I was very unimpressed. Their system is a disaster. What you will see there soon is a revolution; the signs are all there with the demonstrations and picketing. Russia is out of control and the leadership knows it. That’s my problem with Gorbachev. Not a firm enough hand.

You mean firm hand as in China?
When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak … as being spit on by the rest of the world—

Why is Gorbachev not firm enough?
I predict he will be overthrown, because he has shown extraordinary weakness. Suddenly, for the first time ever, there are coal-miner strikes and brush fires everywhere—which will all ultimately lead to a violent revolution. Yet Gorbachev is getting credit for being a wonderful leader—and we should continue giving him credit, because he’s destroying the Soviet Union. But his giving an inch is going to end up costing him and all his friends what they most cherish—their jobs.

Well even if I ever ran for office, I’d do better as a Democrat than as a Republican—and that’s not because I’d be more liberal, because I’m conservative. But the working guy would elect me. He likes me.

Besides the real-estate deal, you’ve met with top-level Soviet officials to negotiate potential business deals with them; how did they strike you?
Generally, these guys are much tougher and smarter than our representatives. We have people in this country just as smart, but unfortunately, they’re not elected officials. We’re still suffering from a loss of respect that goes back to the Carter Administration, when helicopters were crashing into one another in Iran. That was Carter’s emblem. There he was, being carried off from a race, needing oxygen. I don’t want my President to be carried off a race course. I don’t want my President landing on Austrian soil and falling down the stairs of his airplane. Some of our Presidents have been incredible jerk-offs. We need to be tough.

A favorite word of yours, tough. How do you define it?
Tough is being mentally capable of winning battles against an opponent and doing it with a smile. Tough is winning systematically.

Sometimes you sound like a Presidential candidate stirring up the voters.
I don’t want the Presidency. I’m going to help a lot of people with my foundation—and for me, the grass isn’t always greener.

But if the grass ever did look greener, which political party do you think you’d be more comfortable with?
Well, if I ever ran for office, I’d do better as a Democrat than as a Republican—and that’s not because I’d be more liberal, because I’m conservative. But the working guy would elect me. He likes me. When I walk down the street, those cabbies start yelling out their windows.

Another game: What’s the first thing President Trump would do upon entering the Oval Office?
Many things. A toughness of attitude would prevail. I’d throw a tax on every Mercedes-Benz rolling into this country and on all Japanese products, and we’d have wonderful allies again.


Would you rescue our remaining hostages in Lebanon? Number one, in almost all cases, the hostages were told by our government not to be there. If a man decides to become a professor at Beirut University, when he was told not to be there, and that person is captured—

He deserves it?
You feel very bad for him, but you cannot base foreign policy on his capture. With that being said, when they killed our Colonel Higgins, I would have retaliated militarily immediately. I would have hit something vital to them. And hit it hard. In any other case, I would let the takers of hostages know that they’d have one week to return that hostage. And after that week, all bets would be off. You would not have any more hostages taken, believe me. Weakness always causes problems.

Do you think George Bush is soft?
I like George Bush very much and support him and always will. But I disagree with him when he talks of a kinder, gentler America. I think if this country gets any kinder or gentler, it’s literally going to cease to exist. I think if we had people from the business community—the Carl Icahns, the Ross Perots—negotiating some of our foreign policy, we’d have respect around the world.

What would President Trump’s position on crime be?
I see the values of this country in the way crime is tolerated, where people are virtually afraid to say “I want the death penalty.” Well, I want it. Where has this country gone when you’re not supposed to put in a grave the son of a bitch who robbed, beat, murdered and threw a ninety-year-old woman off the building? Where has this country gone?

What would be some of President Trump’s longer-term views of the future?
I think of the future, but I refuse to paint it. Anything can happen. But I often think of nuclear war.

Nuclear war?
I’ve always thought about the issue of nuclear war; it’s a very important element in my thought process. It’s the ultimate, the ultimate catastrophe, the biggest problem this world has, and nobody’s focusing on the nuts and bolts of it. It’s a little like sickness. People don’t believe they’re going to get sick until they do. Nobody wants to talk about it. I believe the greatest of all stupidities is people’s believing it will never happen, because everybody knows how destructive it will be, so nobody uses weapons. What bullshit.

Does any of that fuzzy thinking exist around the Trump office?
On a much lower level, I would never hire anybody who thinks that way, because he has absolutely no common sense. He’s living in a world of make-believe. It’s like thinking the Titantic can’t sink. Too many countries have nuclear weapons; nobody knows where they’re all pointed, what button it takes to launch them. The bomb Harry Truman dropped on Hiroshima was a toy next to today’s. We have thousands of weapons pointed at us and nobody even knows if they’re going to go in the right direction. They’ve never really been tested. These jerks in charge don’t know how to paint a wall, and we’re relying on them to shoot nuclear missiles to Moscow. What happens if they don’t go there? What happens if our computer systems aren’t working? Nobody knows if this equipment works, and I’ve seen numerous reports lately stating that the probability is they don’t work. It’s a total mess.

And how would President Trump handle it?
He would believe very strongly in extreme military strength. He wouldn’t trust anyone. He wouldn’t trust the Russians; he wouldn’t trust our allies; he’d have a huge military arsenal, perfect it, understand it. Part of the problem is that we’re defending some of the wealthiest countries in the world for nothing…. We’re being laughed at around the world, defending Japan—

Wait. If you believe that the public shares these views, and that you could do the job, why not consider running for President?
I’d do the job as well as or better than anyone else. It’s my hope that George Bush can do a great job.

You categorically don’t want to be President?
I don’t want to be President. I’m one hundred percent sure. I’d change my mind only if I saw this country continue to go down the tubes.

More locally, one of your least favorite political figures was Mayor Ed Koch of New York. You two had a great time going after each other: He called you “piggy, piggy, piggy” and you called him “a moron.” Why do you suppose he lost the election?
He lost his touch for the people. He became arrogant. He not only discarded his friends but was a fool for brutally criticizing them. The corruption was merely a symptom of what had happened to him: He had become extremely nasty, mean-spirited and very vicious, an extremely disloyal human being.

When his friends like Bess Myerson and others were in trouble, he seemed to automatically abandon them, almost before finding out what they’d done wrong. He could think only about his own ass—not the city’s. That was dumb: The only one who didn’t know his administration was crumbling around him was him. Power corrupts.

You probably have more power than Koch did as mayor. And you’re getting more of it all the time. How about power’s corrupting you?
I think power sometimes corrupts- “sometimes” has to be added.

Also on the local scene, there’s a report that you wanted to be an owner of a New York—area baseball team in a proposed new baseball league—despite your bad experience as owner of the New Jersey Generals in the short-lived United States Football League.
That’s not true anymore. It’s not a passion of mine. The sports business is a lousy business. If a player gets hurt or doesn’t perform, he wants to get his money anyway; if he performs better than expected, he wants to renegotiate his contract. I like boxing better.

A clean, forthright sport. As one of Mike Tyson’s promoters, what can you tell us about him?
I know Mike better than anybody and have strong opinions, pro and con. But it’s too early for me to say. I understand his obsessions, everything. And no, I don’t begrudge Don King if he’s able to get Mike Tyson to sign a contract to the benefit of Don King.

You got to know him during his marriage to Robin Givens, didn’t you?
Yeah; I loved it when Robin said she didn’t want any money and then sued him. He won the case against her. She was killed when she started in with the law, when she filed for divorce. Historically, this has been the case with champions. The champ can do no wrong.

How is your marriage?
Just fine. Ivana is a very kind and good woman. I also think she has the instincts and drive of a good manager. She’s focused and she’s a perfectionist.

And as a wife, not a manager?
I never comment on romance…. She’s a great mother, a good woman who does a good job.

How did you feel when José Torres wrote his book, excerpted in Playboy, about Tyson’s sex life—the charges that he beat up women and had wild sexual escapades?
It’s unfortunate for one of the great fighters in history to have all this crap hanging over his head. Or for politicians, for that matter. We’re living in an age when there are no boundaries left, which is unfortunate for our country. The problem is, we’re going to lose good talent because somebody likes looking at pretty women or pretty men.

Somebody’s sex life may mean absolutely nothing to the job at hand, but when the written word gels out, we lose somebody good and the country goes to hell. I know politicians who love women who don’t even want to be known for that—because they might lose the gay vote. OK? If this is the kind of extreme we’re heading toward, we’re really in trouble.


What is marriage to you? Is it monogamous?
I don’t have to answer that. I never speak about my wife—which is one of the advantages of not being a politician. My marriage is and should be a personal thing.

I don’t want to be President. I’m one hundred percent sure. I’d change my mind only if I saw this country continue to go down the tubes.

But you do enjoy flirtations?
I think any man enjoys flirtations, and if he said he didn’t, he’d be lying or he’d be a politician trying to get the extra four votes. I think everybody likes knowing he’s well responded to. Especially as you get into certain strata where there is an ego involved and a high level of success, it’s important. People really like the idea that other people respond well to them.

You and your wife are often a subject of very biting satire for magazines such as Spy, which calls you a “short-fingered vulgarian” and recently published a horrendous close-up photograph of your wife on its cover. How do you feel about that? 

Ten years ago, bad publicity was much harder for me to take than it is now. It is almost irrelevant.

That’s all you can say about Spy? It’s a piece of garbage. We assume you take Forbes magazine more seriously; it claims you’re worth one point five billion dollars. But you say three point seven billion dollars. What’s the right figure?
I don’t say anything. Business Week and Fortune have numbers much higher than Forbes’s. I know many people on the Forbes list who shouldn’t be there. It’s a very inaccurate survey. Malcolm Forbes seems to keep me low. Business Week and Fortune don’t have boats and they couldn’t care less.

Speaking of Malcolm Forbes, why didn’t you accept his invitation to the Morocco bash?
I wish I could have gone, but I couldn’t because of a schedule conflict.

Would you spend three million dollars on a party for yourself?
It was a great investment for Malcolm. He got fifty million dollars’ worth of free publicity. I think he should do it every day of his life. That’s like people who can’t understand why I’m building an even more spectacular boat than the Trump Princess. It’s going to be world class, beyond belief.

Let’s talk about your main interest—buildings. Architecture critic Paul Goldberger of The New York Times hasn’t been kind to Trump buildings, panning them as garish and egotistical.

Paul Goldberger has extraordinarily bad taste. He reviews buildings that are failures and loves them. Paul suffers from one malady that I don’t believe is curable. As an architecture critic, you can’t afford the luxury of having bad taste. The fact that he works for the Times, unfortunately, makes his taste important. And that’s why you see some monster buildings going up. If Paul left the Times or the Times left him, you would find that his opinion meant nothing.

But it’s not just the architecture critics who criticize you for stamping your name on everything you own. Are you going to continue doing that forever?
No. I own the Grand Hyatt Hotel; I don’t call it the Trump Hotel. I own the Plaza Hotel, not the Trump Plaza. But I will say that from a marketing point of view, putting my name on buildings is a plus. I’m now building Trump Palace and if I called it something else, I would get hundreds of dollars less per square foot. On the Trump Shuttle, I’ve owned it for six months and we are already taking over fifty percent of the market in Washington, Boston and New York. If I called it anything but the Trump Shuttle, it wouldn’t be nearly so successful. The Tour de Trump was actually going to be called the Tour de Jersey. We had four hundred and seventy-three reporters at a news conference for a damn bicycle race; how many would have been there for the Tour de Jersey? We would have gotten nowhere.

You’re involved in so many activities, deals, promotions—in the deep of the night, after the reporters all leave your conferences, are you ever satisfied with what you’ve accomplished?
I’m too superstitious to be satisfied. I don’t dwell on the past. People who do that go right down the tubes. I’m never self-satisfied. Life is what you do while you’re waiting to die. You know, it is all a rather sad situation.

Life? Or death?
Both. We’re here and we live our sixty, seventy or eighty years and we’re gone. You win, you win, and in the end, it doesn’t mean a hell of a lot. But it is something to do—to keep you interested.

Do you agree with the T-shirt that says, WHOEVER HAS THE MOST TOYS WINS?
Depends on your definition of winning. Some of my friends are unbelievably successful and miserable people. I truly believe that someone successful is never really happy, because dissatisfaction is what drives him. I’ve never met a successful person who wasn’t neurotic. It’s not a terrible thing … it’s controlled neuroses.

What do you mean?
Controlled neuroses means having a tremendous energy level, an abundance of discontent that often isn’t visible. It’s also not oversleeping. I don’t sleep more than four hours a night. I have friends who need twelve hours a night and I tell them they’re at a major disadvantage in terms of playing the game.

And when you’re up at night, you’re totally alone?
Yeah, yeah, because it’s a little tough to find anyone up at four in the morning.

You mentioned that you have to be born with “it.” Do you suppose your children inherited “it” from you?
Statistically, my children have a very bad shot. Children of successful people are generally very, very troubled, not successful. They don’t have the right shtick. You never know until they’re tested. But I do well with my children.

Do you think they will have to make it?
I would love them to be in business with me, but ninety-five percent of those children fail in a sophisticated big business. It takes confidence, intelligence, shtick. If any one of these traits is missing, you’re not going to make it.

You’ve always said that you earned, not inherited, your empire, that adversity and uphill struggles made you stronger. What kind of adversity can your children experience?
I’m a strong believer in genes, that my kids can be brought up without adversity and respond well if they have the genes. I have a friend who is extraordinarily smart. But he never became successful, because he couldn’t take pressure. He was buying a home and it was literally killing him—a man of forty with an I.Q. of probably a hundred and ninety. He called me one day for the umpteenth time, worrying about his mortgage and I was sitting in my chair, thinking to myself, Here I am, buying the shuttle, the Plaza Hotel, and I don’t lose an ounce of sleep over any of it. That’s lucky genes.

Even with good genes, how can your kids ever feel they’ve lived up to what you’ve accomplished?
I don’t know that they’ll have to. I would be happier if they were able to preserve rather than build. I’m not looking to have a great deal maker as a son, though I’d certainly like everything to run beautifully when I’m not around. I’d be happier if my son became a great manager rather than a great entrepreneur.

My kids are extremely well adjusted. But I wonder what they think when they walk into Mar-a-Lago and see ceilings that rise to heights that nobody’s ever seen before. And when my daughter’s date picks her up at Trump Tower in a few years and sees the living room, how will he feel when he takes her out and tries to impress her with a studio apartment?

Knowing all this, are you taking any precautions?
It’s somewhat late. And I don’t think a paper route would work. But my son works on the boat.

When you think about role models from history, what figures particularly inspired you?
I could say Winston Churchill, but … I’ve always thought that Louis B. Mayer led the ultimate life, that Flo Ziegfeld led the ultimate life, that men like Darryl Zanuck and Harry Cohn did some creative and beautiful things. The ultimate job for me would have been running MGM in the Thirties and Forties—pre-television.

There was incredible glamour and style in those days that’s gone now. And that’s when you could control situations. In those days, when your great actor was an alcoholic, and nobody ever found out—that was having tremendous control over things, which would be impossible today.

You talk about glamour and style being gone—but isn’t that what you tried to bring back to New York?
Yes, but not in show business, in my business. The Plaza Hotel is far more valuable than any movie I could make. If I put together a string of movies that were all hits, I couldn’t have made anywhere near what I made in real estate. I believe I’ve added show business to the real-estate business, and that’s been a positive for my properties and in my life.

So building that second huge yacht isn’t an act of gaudy excess but another act in the show?
Well, it draws people. It will be the eighth wonder of the world and will create an aura that seems to work. It will cost me two hundred million dollars. But I don’t need it! I could be very happy living in a one-bedroom apartment. I used to live that life. In the early Seventies, I lived in a studio apartment overlooking a water tank.

If you were starting over again, in what business would you choose to make your fortune?
Good question…. There’s something about mother earth that’s awfully good, and mother earth is still real estate. With the right financing, you’ve essentially invested no money. Publishing, movies, broadcasting are tougher, and there aren’t too many Rupert Murdochs, Si Newhouses, Robert Maxwells and Punch Sulzbergers. I’ll stick to real estate.

When someone tries to sucker-punch me, when they’re after my ass, I push back a hell of a lot harder than I was pushed in the first place.

What about the stock market?
It’s a crap shoot. Real estate is something solid. It’s brick, mortar.

Do you regret your statements to the press after the October 1987 crash, when you seemed to gloat about getting out in time when others were wiped out?
No. I didn’t gloat. Somebody reported that I was out of the market and I confirmed it. I don’t know if that’s talent or luck or instinct. I then went back into the market after the crash. I think the cash market is the great one right now—cash is king, and that’s one of the beauties of the casino business.

You seem very pleasant and charming during interviews, yet you talk constantly about toughness. Do you put on an act for us?
I think everybody has to have some kind of filtering system. I’m very fair and I have had the same people working for me for years. Rarely does anybody leave me. But when somebody tries to sucker-punch me, when they’re after my ass, I push back a hell of a lot harder than I was pushed in the first place. If somebody tries to push me around, he’s going to pay a price. Those people don’t come back for seconds. I don’t like being pushed around or taken advantage of. And that’s one of the problems with our country today. This country is being pushed around by everyone—

About your own toughness….
Well, as I said, I study people and in every negotiation, I weigh how tough I should appear. I can be a killer and a nice guy. You have to be everything. You have to be strong. You have to be sweet. You have to be ruthless. And I don’t think any of it can be learned. Either you have it or you don’t. And that is why most kids can get straight A’s in school but fail in life.

Is there a master plan to your deal making or is it all improvisational?
It’s much more improvisational than people might think.

As you continue to make more deals, as you accumulate more and more, there’s a central question that arises about Donald Trump: How much is enough?
As long as I enjoy what I’m doing without getting bored or tired … the sky’s the limit.


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 SOURCE: https://www.playboy.com/read/playboy-interview-donald-trump-1990

"...  Title: "THE PLAYBOY INTERVIEW WITH DONALD TRUMP" published Mar 1, 1990 ...

 Playboy sat down with ... Donald Trump in 1990 where he teased a future in politics

Written by GLENN PLASKIN, Photographed by RANDY O'ROURKE ...

Donald Trump sits alone. He hasn’t slept in 48 hours. At six a.m., perched high in the bronze-coated jewel of his empire, Trump Tower, he’s bent over a mammoth Brazilian-rosewood desk, scrutinizing spread sheets. No insomnia, no gnawing worries. 

 “Pressure,” he surmises, sipping an iced Coke, “doesn’t upset my sleep,” a standard four hours nightly. “I like throwing balls into the air—and I dream like a baby.” 

Three hours later, blond hair marshaled, he announces, with standard chutzpah, his seven-and-a-half-billion-dollar bid to gobble down the nation’s premiere airline, American. 

On the strength of his 120-dollar-a-share bid, the stock vaults from 16 dollars to 99 dollars. 

 The 43-year-old billionaire, who owns huge blocks of American Airlines stock, smiles broadly. 

A week later, with the market tumbling 190 points, he withdraws his offer, perhaps temporarily. 

Despite some reports that insinuated his American raid was only cardboard, a ploy to rattle up his stock, Trump stares into space: “Nope. I want it.”

Yup. If it’s the best, and it’s for sale, Donald Trump’s stomach begins to growl. 

He captured troubled Saudi financier Adnan Khashoggi’s onyx-and-gold-plated yacht for a mere $29,000,000—now it’s worth $100,000,000. 

Then he bought the Eastern Shuttle for $365,000,000 and transformed it overnight into the Trump Shuttle, complete with comfortable cabins and stewardesses rustling in virgin wool and pearls.

A year earlier, he had bought the Plaza Hotel for $400,000,000 and is now lovingly restoring her without a name change. 

Her make-over will be supervised by the Czech mistress of Trump’s kingdom, Ivana, a former Olympic skier and fashion model. 

At home, Ivana presides over a 100-room Trump Tower triplex, recently expanded from 50 rooms “Better closet space,” she jokes). 

Trump, proud of the salmon-marbled atrium of Trump Tower, where no expense was spared, says, “I bought the whole damn mountain! You’ve never seen that color before. Ivana suggested it because it makes people look better.”

The couple also has a 47-room country house on ten acres in Greenwich, Connecticut, and the well-publicized 118-room Mar-a-Lago Marjorie Merriweather Post estate in Palm Beach, their commute time shortened by the 727 jet and the French-made military Puma helicopter.

The Trump Princess, or the Khashoggi “boat,” as Trump now calls it, has gotten cramped, so a Dutch shipyard is confecting not a Princess but a full-fledged Queen costing more than $175,000,000.

Such ostentation, despite a catalog of charities and good deeds done for sick kids, has predictably yielded a rich crop of snipers. 

Spy magazine, the New York—based humor monthly, cheerfully carries on a scabrous vendetta against the Trumps, comparing them to Dickensian monsters. 

Time did a cover story on the decay of Atlantic City and chided Trump for helping create a crime-plagued urban blight divided between welfare cases and high rollers. 

On the Upper West Side, Manhattanites attack him for his proclaimed desire to build an enormous complex, Trump City, complete with a 150-story sky-scraper; Phil Donahue charges that Trump’s casinos pillage the gullible; an aide close to outgoing mayor Ed Koch calls Trump “the most arrogant s.o.b. who has ever stepped onto the earth.” 

Ah, well. To be young, blond and a billionaire. It doesn’t seem to matter. The most daunting entrepreneur since the Astors, Vanderbilts and Whitneys, Donald John Trump has made his “art of the deal” work—not just for making money but for crushing adversaries, too. Case in point: Merv Griffin.

Ten months after Griffin bought Trump’s Resorts International Inc. for $365,000,000, for which Trump had paid $101,000,000 the year before, Griffin found himself holding a busted balloon. 

Not only had he inherited the hotel-casino’s $925,000,000 debt but he embarrassingly had to report first-half losses of $46,600,000. z

There’s now talk of a possible bankruptcy for Merv and a possible lawsuit against Trump. 

Looking beyond his one-billion-dollar Taj Mahal opening in Atlantic City next month, Trump has plenty to consider. 

There are rumors of his building casinos in Nevada and his buying Tiffany’s, NBC, the New York Daily News or the Waldorf Hotel “I’ve got to have the Waldorf,” he coos jokingly into the phone. 

“I can’t sleep without it”). And the Presidency? No, that takes an election, and it is clear that Trump is not that patient. Too much to do!

The billion-dollar baby was born in the exclusive Jamaica Estates in Queens, New York, on June 14, 1946, to a mere millionaire, real-estate developer Fred Trump, who had racked up his $20,000,000 fortune building low-to-middle-priced homes and apartments in Brooklyn and Queens. 

Among the five little Trumps, only Donald seemed to have a passion for mortar and bricks, riding around construction sites with his father- “who ruled all of us with a steel will”—and showing younger brother Robert, now a low-profile V.P. in the Trump organization, who was boss in their 23-room house. 

At the age of eight, little Donald borrowed Robert’s cherished toy blocks, glued them together into one giant skyscraper and never returned them, thereafter exercising his fantasies about changing Manhattan’s skyline. 

His father, who harped on the importance of “knowing how to make a buck,” regarded mop-haired Donald as “rough and wild,” shipped him off to the New York Military Academy in Cornwall-on-Hudson and, some say, forever instilled in him a gnawing sense of inadequacy that fueled the boy’s ambition.

There followed two years at Fordham and two years at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance, then a few years diddling in middle-income housing until, at the age of 28, Trump delivered the punch that launched him. 

Taking a hard look at Manhattan’s troubled fortunes, he fastened onto the bankruptcy of the Penn Central Railroad as his ticket into the big time and nimbly plucked options on Penn’s Hudson River railroad yards, now the site of New York’s Convention Center, and its 59-year-old Commodore Hotel, now the Grand Hyatt. 

The coup was in his persuading bankers to lend him $80,000,000 and in talking politicians into awarding him a $120,000,000 tax abatement.

Persuasion, hype and chutzpah thereafter defined the Trump style, welded to a scrupulous management technique.

In 1979, at the age of 33, he snapped up the Fifth Avenue site of the old Bonwit Teller for $20,000,000, won a $140,000,000 tax abatement and three years later finished Trump Tower, a 68-story dazzler that includes a six-story atrium and today draws 100,000 visitors daily, with residents such as Johnny Carson and Steven Spielberg.

Amassing a fortune his father never dreamed possible—a cash hoard of $900,000,000, a geyser of $50,000,000 a week from his hotel-casinos, assets thought to total 3.7 billion dollars—Trump soon became as captivated by mystique-making as by money-making.

As the snooty ads running around New York proclaimed, “Everything does seem to be very Trump these days.” 

There are his residential buildings, Trump Parc and Trump Plaza and the soon-to-be-finished Trump Palace; 

Trump Castle in Atlantic City and the soon-to-be-finished Taj Mahal; 

his book Trump: The Art of the Deal, written with Tony Schwartz, which held on to the number-one spot, 
 on the New York Times best-seller list longer than any business book since Iacocca; his high-rise board game named—you guessed it—Trump (reported to be a flop); 

his upcoming TV game show—you guessed it again—Trump Card; 

and the bike race named Tour de Trump, which, as he points out, sure beats its old name—Tour de Jersey. And—well—you get the picture.

“Vision is my best asset,” he says without a shred of modesty. “I know what sells and I know what people want.”

Along the way, Trump even found time to attend the 1976 Montreal Olympics, marry his match, Ivana Zelnicek (who has vowed never to look a day over 29), and produce his own little Trumps—Donald, Jr., 12, Ivanka, eight, and Eric, six.

Notwithstanding the good fortune that seems to have attended Trump’s business moves, he and his family have not escaped life’s darker side. 

While sisters Maryanne, a Federal judge in New Jersey, and Elizabeth, an administrative assistant for Chase Manhattan, have found their niches, Trump’s older brother, Fred, hated the real-estate business, became an airline pilot took to drink and died an alcoholic in 1981 at 43.

Trump was also recently shaken when, last October, three key executives died in a helicopter crash; the boss reportedly narrowly missed death, deciding at the last minute that he was too busy to travel. 

“I never realized,” says Trump today, “how deaths outside the family could have such a profound effect on me. It’s a tragic waste.” 

As for himself, he’s fatalistic: “I work, I don’t worry and I protect myself as well as anybody can. But ultimately we all end up going to hopefully greener pastures.”

To check out his present-day pastures, we sent New York Daily News celebrity interviewer and syndicated columnist Glenn Plaskin to talk with him. 

This interview had long been in the works, including two earlier starts. But Plaskin finally got Trump to sit down with him over a period of nearly 16 weeks. 

His report:

“For our first session at Trump Tower, after being visually frisked by a troop of basketball-player-tall bodyguards, I entered the inner sanctum. 
There was Donald Trump, as he would be for most of our sessions, slumped behind the cinnamon-colored desk, slung comically low in his chair, clipping his fingernails. ‘I think best this way,’ he’d deadpan.

“As the weeks went by, I found I liked, poking through the hooded dare-me eyes with rapid-fire changes of topic, watching for surprise. 

Often he parried with rehearsed answers, but we spent enough time together that we entered genuinely fresh territory. 

When I asked for his stand on abortion, he frowned, pouted and asked me to turn the recorder off. 
 He didn’t really have an opinion—what the hell was mine? It was a very human moment.

“Supervising his office like an exceedingly well-run vaudeville show, executive assistant Norma Foerderer would wander in with another gold-framed magazine cover to put up on his wall—or with a seven-pound cheese-cake or a stuffed skunk. 

Trump would take calls during our interview—never for more than a few minutes—that invariably ended with, ‘Okay, baby, you’re the greatest.’ 

Then secretary Rhona Graff would walk in, bearing little yellow slips of paper announcing calls waiting: down-on-his-luck financier Adnan Khashoggi, asking to have lunch; a hotel executive, dickering to sell yet another big hotel…. By the time Duchess Fergie called about borrowing his brand-new accident-proof helicopter, and Don Johnson to borrow his city-size yacht, I was dizzy.

“To get away from it all, we began our first session hovering above the East River in the cobalt Darth Vader helicopter. 

Donald Trump was strapped into taupe leather, good-naturedly hyping his empire below.”

You aren’t known for being shy at promotion; let’s start by playing a little game. Trump Tower is…? The finest residential building anywhere.

The Taj Mahal in Atlantic City is going to be…? The most spectacular hotel-casino anywhere in the world.

And the Trump Shuttle will be…? Easily the number-one service to Washington and Boston.

Your apartment sales are…? The best. Trump Tower and Trump Parc have seventy percent of the top sales in New York per square foot.

Why?
Simple: People know they’re going into a building where no expense is spared, where the level of materials and finishes will be the best, where the location will be the best. Many European and Japanese investors literally give their subordinates instructions to buy apartments only in Trump buildings. A Japanese investor just paid me twenty million bucks for seven apartments he’s turning into one.

Okay. But here we are at the start of a new decade. How do you respond when people call you ostentatious, ego-ridden and a greedy symbol of the Eighties?

Rich men are less likely to like me, but the working man likes me because he knows I worked hard and didn’t inherit what I’ve built. Hey, I made it myself; I have a right to do what I want with it.

With so much poverty on the city streets, isn’t it embarrassing for you to flaunt your wealth?
There has always been a display of wealth and always will be, until the depression comes, which it always does. And let me tell you, a display is a good thing. It shows people that you can be successful. It can show you a way of life. Dynasty did it on TV. It’s very important that people aspire to be successful. The only way you can do it is if you look at somebody who is.

And for you, sitting snugly inside the one hundred and eighteen rooms of your Palm Beach mansion——
People understand that the house in Florida is business. I use it very seldom. I could be happy living in a studio apartment.

Oh, come on.
I mean it; the houses, the planes and the boat are just investments. 
 I paid twenty-nine million dollars for the Khashoggi yacht; two years later, I’ll be selling it for more than one hundred million dollars and getting a bigger one.

Why in the world do you need a bigger yacht?
I don’t. But the Khashoggi boat is worth more only if I sell it. This new one will—believe it or not—be even more spectacular and bring tremendous acclaim to Trump properties in Atlantic City.

What is it that attracts you to all this glitz?
I have glitzy casinos because people expect it; I’m not going to build the lobby of the IBM office building in Trump Castle. Glitz works in Atlantic City, and yet the Plaza Hotel has been brought back to its original elegance of 1907. So I don’t use glitz in all cases. And in my residential buildings, I sometimes use flash, which is a level below glitz.

Then what does all this—the yacht, the bronze tower, the casinos—really mean to you?
Props for the show.

And what is the show?
The show is Trump and it is sold-out performances everywhere. I’ve had fun doing it and will continue to have fun, and I think most people enjoy it.

Do you think the ones who hate it are jealous?
They could be whatever—but the vast majority dig it.

Calvin Klein, who doesn’t have a fraction of your wealth, has often said he feels guilty about his. Do you?
It’s not overriding, but I do have it.

You don’t sound guilty at all.
I do have a feeling of guilt. I’m living well and like it, I know that many other people don’t live particularly well. I do have a social consciousness. I’m setting up a foundation; I give a lot of money away and I think people respect that. The fact that I built this large company by myself—working people respect that; but the people who are at high levels don’t like it. They’d like it for themselves.

Do you see yourself as greedy?
I don’t think I’m greedy. If I were, I wouldn’t give to charities. 
 I run the Wollman Skating Rink in New York City for nothing and I gave away the royalties from my book. I give millions for charity each year. If I were really greedy….

You mean like Leona Helmsley, the convicted hotel queen?
Yes, like Leona Helmsley. She is a vicious, horrible woman who systematically destroyed the Helmsley name. I know Leona better than anybody does but Harry [Helmsley]. If Harry had one fault, it was giving her too much leeway.

When I was twenty, Harry was the big guy in town. I once drove my car down the street in Manhattan, saw him at a corner, stopped and introduced myself and offered him a ride. When I pulled over on the left side of the street, with traffic on the right, he asked me to get out of the car so he could get out on the left side. I thought to myself, This is a highly conservative guy. He never would have evaded taxes on his own. But Leona pushed and pushed him. He needed that money like you need fifty-six cents in your pockets, I’m telling you.

Also, Leona was not a great business-woman but a very bad one. She sold me the St. Moritz Hotel and a few years later, I made more than a hundred million dollars on it. She ran that hotel badly. She set the women’s movement back fifty years. She is a living nightmare, and to be married to her must be like living in hell.

I think any man enjoys flirtations, and if he said he didn’t, he’d be lying or he’d be a politician trying to get the extra four votes.

On the other hand, your wife, Ivana, is doing a great job running the Plaza, right?
Well, I have told Ivana, “Whatever Leona would do, do the opposite. [Laughs] Be nice to everybody.” And she is nice, anyway.

Was it simple greed with Leona?
Much more than greed. She’s out of her mind. Leona Helmsley is a truly evil human being. She treated employees worse than any human being I’ve ever witnessed and I’ve dealt with some of the toughest human beings alive.

What do you do to stay in touch with your employees?
I inspect the Trump Tower atrium every morning. Walk into it … it’s perfect; everything shines. I go down and raise hell in a nice way all the time because I want everything to be absolutely immaculate. I’m totally hands-on. I get along great with porters and maids at the Plaza and the Grand Hyatt. I’ve had bright people ask me why I talk to porters and maids. I can’t even believe that question. Those are the people who make it all work…. If they like me, they will work harder … and I pay well.

You lost some valued employees in a recent helicopter crash.
Yes. I lost not only brilliant, key players in my company but true friends—and I couldn’t believe it. At first, I was shocked, called their wives, just kept functioning…. My own sense of optimism and life was greatly diminished. I never realized how deaths outside the family could have such a profound effect on me.

What did you think when the shock wore off?
[Pauses] It’s a tragic waste. I was also angry in that it was an event that I didn’t want to happen. Here was this press conference, a very mediocre event announcing a minor boxing match. I told these guys that they didn’t need to go, but they wanted to be there…. They gave their lives for something so unimportant. It’s been a rough time. [Pauses]

What do you think of rich people in general?
Rich people are great survivors and, by nature, they fall into two categories—those who have inherited and those who’ve made it. Those who have inherited and chosen not to do anything are generally very timid, afraid of losing what they’ve got, and who can blame them? Others are great risk takers and produce a hell of a lot more or go bust.

As Merv Griffin did? After buying Resorts International from you, the company may be facing bankruptcy. What happened there?
Merv is a good guy who I have really just gotten to know; we were both judges on the Miss America Pageant after our deal. I don’t want to bug him, but prior to buying Resorts, he was telling everybody what a great deal he made and, by inference, what a bad deal Trump made.

But, in fact, you didn’t make such a bad deal.
Well, let’s just say he didn’t out-Trump Trump. He has a huge amount of debt. But he is very efficient and has very good PR people. 
Business Week wrote a story titled "How Donald Taught Merv the Art of the Deal". I was angry. And equally angry when People and Time magazines, with no goddamned research and no knowledge, incompetently reported that Merv had bested Donald. Can you imagine? They didn’t do any research. They just listened to PR people. Well, now they know the truth and have asked about following up or correcting stories. I said, “Forget it—it doesn’t matter.”

What satisfaction, exactly, do you get out of doing a deal?
I love the creative process. I do what I do out of pure enjoyment. Hopefully, nobody does it better. There’s a beauty to making a great deal. It’s my canvas. And I like painting it ... I like the challenge and tell the story of the coal miner’s son. The coal miner gets black-lung disease, his son gets it, then his son. If I had been the son of a coal miner, I would have left the damn mines. But most people don’t have the imagination—or whatever—to leave their mine. They don’t have “it.”

Which is?
“It” is an ability to become an entrepreneur, a great athlete, a great writer. You’re either born with it or you’re not. Ability can be honed, perfected or neglected. The day Jack Nicklaus came into this world, he had more innate ability to play golf than anybody else.

... 

You obviously have a lot of self-confidence. How do you use that in a business deal?
I believe in positive thinking, but I also believe in the power of negative thinking. You should prepare for the worst. If I’m doing a deal, I want to know how bad it’s going to be if everything doesn’t work rather than how good it’s going to be. I have a positive outlook, but I’m unfortunately also quite cynical. So if all the negatives happened, what would my strategy be? Would I want to be in that position? If I don’t, I don’t do the deal. My attitude is to focus on the down side because the up side will always take care of itself. If a deal is going to be great, it’s just a question of, How much am I going to make?

How far are you willing to push adversaries?
I will demand anything I can get. When you’re doing business, you take people to the brink of breaking them without having them break, to the maximum point their heads can handle—without breaking them. That’s the sign of a good businessman: Somebody else would take them fifteen steps beyond their breaking point.

What if your pushing results in losing the deal?
Then I pushed him too far. I would have made a mistake. But I don’t. I push to the maximum of what he can stand and I get a better deal than he gets.

Another aspect of your deal making is how you handle the media. You managed to suppress an unflattering TV documentary about you funded by your archnemesis, [New York businessman and publisher] Leonard Stern. Do you also claim victory over him?
Total victory, yes. But I don’t want to dwell on triumph or defeat.

That may sound magnanimous, but, in fact, you’re known to exact revenge on people you think have tried to pull something on you.
I think I’m fair, not tough, in business. But if somebody is trying to do an injustice to me, I fight back harder than anybody I know. When somebody tries to harm you or your family, you have an absolute right to fight back.

Do you hate Stern?
No. Stern is a nonentity to me. He obviously dislikes me enough to spend close to a million dollars trying to make a negative documentary

You have a lot of enemies in New York City, among them a group that opposes your building a huge Trump City on the Hudson that will include the world’s tallest building—on the theory that it will ruin the West Side and cause unbearable congestion. What do you say to them?
Point one: There were more people living on the West Side of New York in the Forties than there are today. Very few people understand that. 
Point two: Trump City is going to be an architectural masterpiece. 
Point three: The city desperately needs the taxes, the housing and the shopping that will produce billions of dollars in revenue. Yet that community group [West Pride] fights every job.

Those people fight for the sake of fighting. I honestly believe that if I proposed an eighty-acre park, they would come out and fight me. Selfishly, they like what they have and don’t want to give it to anybody else. We need another Rockefeller Center—especially now that Mitsubishi has bought most of the one we had.

Among other things, West Pride claims the largest building in the world would cast a mammoth shadow across the West Side, blocking out light and wrecking the ambience of the neighborhood.
[Angrily] Every building casts a shadow, for God’s sake! I want this job to be dramatic. I strive for that. I don’t want it to be contextual, blending into everything else. It shouldn’t be like getting a haircut and telling the barber I don’t want anyone to know I’ve gotten one. I am competing here with the state of New Jersey, which is sucking the life-blood out of New York City. They’re beating us up. Trump City would take the play away from the development of the New Jersey waterfront. There will be nothing in New York to compete with Trump City!

So you’re going to build it, come what may?
I’ll build it, though it may not be now. I’ll wait until things get bad in the city, because every city in every nation has its ups and downs. If I had tried to get the zoning for Trump City in 1975, I would have gotten everything I wanted, because the city was absolutely at a low point. I may now wait for construction to stop, for interest rates to go up—then the city will desperately need Trump City.

You often say that the key to your success is being a good deal maker and a good manager. Why?
I’ve seen great deal makers go down the tubes because they haven’t known how to manage what they’ve had. Take [Saudi financier indicted for a felony] Adnan Khashoggi: He was a great deal maker but a bad businessman. Time will tell if Merv is a good manager. He is going to have to be.

When you were growing up in Queens, your father was supposedly a harsh taskmaster. It has been theorized that your father instilled in you a great sense of inadequacy. True?
That’s one hundred percent wrong. I was always very much accepted by my father. He adored Donald Trump and I’ve always known that. But I did want to prove to my father and other people that I had the ability to be successful on my own.

You’ve often said that your father made you work as a teenager and taught you the value of the buck.
My father never made me work. I liked to work during summers. I don’t understand these teenagers who sit home watching television all day. Where’s their appetite for competition? Working was in my genes.

Still, your father was one tough son of a bitch, wasn’t he?
He was a strong, strict father, a no-nonsense kind of guy, but he didn’t hit me. It wasn’t what he’d ever say to us, either. He ruled by demeanor, not the sword. And he never scared or intimidated me.

Your older brother, Fred, who died from heart failure brought on by acute alcoholism, had a more difficult time with him, didn’t he?
Take one environment and it will work completely differently on different children. Our family environment, the competitiveness, was a negative for Fred. It wasn’t easy for him being cast in a very tough environment, and I think it played havoc on him.

I was very close to him and it was very sad when he died … toughest situation I’ve had….

What did you learn from his experience?
[Pauses] Nobody has ever asked me that. But his death affected everything that has come after it…. I think constantly that I never really gave him thanks for it. He was the first Trump boy out there, and I subconsciously watched his moves.

And the lesson?
I saw people really taking advantage of Fred and the lesson I learned was always to keep up my guard one hundred percent, whereas he didn’t. He didn’t feel that there was really reason for that, which is a fatal mistake in life. People are too trusting. I’m a very untrusting guy. I study people all the time, automatically; it’s my way of life, for better or worse.

Why?
I am very skeptical about people; that’s self-preservation at work. I believe that, unfortunately, people are out for themselves. At this point, it’s to many people’s advantage to like me. Would the phone stop ringing, would these people kissing ass disappear if things were not going well?

I enjoy testing friendship…. Everything in life to me is a psychological game, a series of challenges you either meet or don’t. I am always testing people who work for me.

How?
I will send people around to my buyers to test their honesty by offering them trips and other things. I’ve been surprised that some people least likely to accept a trip from a contractor did and some of the most likely did not. You can never tell until you test; the human species is interesting in that way. So to me, friendship can be really tested only in bad times.

I instinctively mistrust many people. It is not a negative in my life but a positive. Playboy wouldn’t be talking to me today if I weren’t a cynic. So I learned that from Fred, and I owe him a lot…. He could have ultimately been a happy guy, but things just went the unhappy way.

How large a role does pure ego play in your deal making and enjoyment of publicity?
Every successful person has a very large ego.

Every successful person? Mother Teresa? Jesus Christ?
Far greater egos than you will ever understand.

And the Pope?
Absolutely. Nothing wrong with ego. People need ego, whole nations need ego. I think our country needs more ego, because it is being ripped off so badly by our so-called allies; i.e., Japan, West Germany, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, etc. They have literally out "egotized" this country, because they rule the greatest money machine ever assembled and it’s sitting on our backs. Their products are better because they have so much subsidy.

We Americans are laughed at around the world for losing a hundred and fifty billion dollars year after year, for defending wealthy nations for nothing, nations that would be wiped off the face of the earth in about fifteen minutes if it weren’t for us. Our “allies” are making billions screwing us.

How do you feel about Japan’s economic pre-eminence?
Japan gets almost seventy percent of its oil from the Persian Gulf, relies on ships led back home by our destroyers, battleships, helicopters, frog men. Then the Japanese sail home, where they give the oil to fuel their factories so that they can knock the hell out of General Motors, Chrysler and Ford. Their openly screwing us is a disgrace. Why aren’t they paying us? The Japanese cajole us, they bow to us, they tell us how great we are and then they pick our pockets. We’re losing hundreds of billions of dollars a year while they laugh at our stupidity.

The Japanese have their great scientists making cars and VCRs and we have our great scientists making missiles so we can defend Japan. Why aren’t we being reimbursed for our costs? The Japanese double-screw the U.S., a real trick: First they take all our money with their consumer goods, then they put it back in buying all of Manhattan. So either way, we lose.

You’re opposed to Japanese buying real estate in the U.S.?
I have great respect for the Japanese people and list many of them as great friends. But, hey, if you want to open up a business in Japan, good luck. It’s virtually impossible. But the Japanese can buy our buildings, our Wall Street firms, and there’s virtually nothing to stop them. In fact, bidding on a building in New York is an act of futility, because the Japanese will pay more than it’s worth just to screw us. They want to own Manhattan.

Of course, I shouldn’t even be complaining about it, because I’m one of the big beneficiaries of it. If I ever wanted to sell any of my properties, I’d have a field day. But it’s an embarrassment, I give great credit to the Japanese and their leaders, because they have made our leaders look totally second rate.

A group of Japanese visitors to New York was recently asked if there were anything in the U.S. they would like to buy. The answer: towels.
That’s fair trade: They’ll take the towels and we’ll buy their cars. It doesn’t sound like a good deal to me. They have totally outsmarted the American politician; they have no respect for us, because they’re getting a free ride. Of course, it’s not just the Japanese or the Europeans—the Saudis, the Kuwaitis walk all over us.

The Arabs also spend plenty of money in your casinos, don’t they?
They lose a million, two million at the tables and they’re so happy because they had such a great weekend. If you lost a million dollars, you’d be sick for the rest of your life, maybe. They write me letters telling me what a wonderful time they had.

You have taken out full-page ads in several major newspapers that not only concern U.S. foreign trade but call for the death penalty, too. Why?
Because I hate seeing this country go to hell. We’re laughed at by the rest of the world. In order to bring law and order back into our cities, we need the death penalty and authority given back to the police. I got fifteen thousand positive letters on the death-penalty ad. I got ten negative or slightly negative ones.

You believe in an eye for an eye?
When a man or woman cold-bloodedly murders, he or she should pay. It sets an example. Nobody can make the argument that the death penalty isn’t a deterrent. Either it will be brought back swiftly or our society will rot away. It is rotting away.

For a man so concerned about our crumbling cities, some would say you’ve done little for crumbling Atlantic City besides pull fifty million dollars a week out of tourists’ pockets.
Elected officials have that responsibility. I would hate to think that people blame me for the problems of the world. Yet people come to me and say, “Why do you allow homelessness in the cities?” as if I control the situation. I am not somebody seeking office.

What about using your influence in Atlantic City to help the disadvantaged?
Everybody has influence, but it is a governmental problem. I take out those ads to wake up the government about how Japan and others are ripping our country apart—

Wait. Doesn’t it seem that with all your influence in Atlantic City you could do more to combat crime and corruption and put something back into the community?
Well, crime and prostitution go up, and Atlantic City administrations are into very deep trouble with the law, and there are lots of problems there, no question about it. But there is a tremendous amount of money going to housing from the profits of the casinos.

As somebody who runs hotels, all I can do, when you get right down to it, is run the best places, bring in as much money as possible, which in turn goes out for taxes. I contribute millions a year to various charities. Finally, by law, I’m not allowed to have governmental influence; but if they passed legislation that allowed me to get more involved, I’d be very happy to do it. In the meantime, I have the most incredible hotels in the world in Atlantic City. The Taj Mahal will be beyond belief. And if I can awaken the government of Atlantic City, I have performed a great service.

We’ve talked about building low-income housing; what have you done about that in other locations?
I did that during the years I worked with my father; I did build both low-income housing and housing for the elderly. And now I’m going to be building more of it. The problem is, that stuff never gets written about.

”If I had been the son of a coal miner, I would have left the damn mines. But most people don’t have the imagination—or whatever—to leave their mine. They don’t have ‘it.’”

On the other hand, you were invited to consider building a luxury hotel in Moscow a few years ago. What was your trip to Moscow like?
It was not long after the Korean plane was shot down over Russia. There I am up in my plane when my pilot announces, “We are now flying over the Soviet Union,” and I’m thinking to myself, What the hell am I doing here?

Then I look out the window and see two Russian fighter planes … I later found out, guiding us in. I had insisted on having two Russian colonels flying with me—I felt safer, and my pilot doesn’t speak great Russian, which is putting it mildly, and I didn’t want problems in radio communications.

Once you got to Moscow, how did the negotiations go?
I told them, “Guys, you have a basic problem. Far as real estate is concerned, it’s impossible to get title to Russian land, since the government owns it all. What kind of financing are you gonna get on a building where the land is owned by the goddamned motherland?”

They said, “No problem, Mr. Trump. We will work out lease arrangements.”

I said, “I want ownership, not leases.”

They came up with a solution: “Mr. Trump, we form a committee with ten people, of which seven are Russian and three are your representatives, and all disputes will be resolved in this manner.”

I thought to myself, Shit, seven to three—are we dealing in the world of the make-believe here or what?

What were your other impressions of the Soviet Union?
I was very unimpressed. Their system is a disaster. What you will see there soon is a revolution; the signs are all there with the demonstrations and picketing. Russia is out of control and the leadership knows it. That’s my problem with Gorbachev. Not a firm enough hand.

You mean firm hand as in China?
When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak … as being spit on by the rest of the world—

Why is Gorbachev not firm enough?
I predict he will be overthrown, because he has shown extraordinary weakness. Suddenly, for the first time ever, there are coal-miner strikes and brush fires everywhere—which will all ultimately lead to a violent revolution. Yet Gorbachev is getting credit for being a wonderful leader—and we should continue giving him credit, because he’s destroying the Soviet Union. But his giving an inch is going to end up costing him and all his friends what they most cherish—their jobs.

Well even if I ever ran for office, I’d do better as a Democrat than as a Republican—and that’s not because I’d be more liberal, because I’m conservative. But the working guy would elect me. He likes me.

Besides the real-estate deal, you’ve met with top-level Soviet officials to negotiate potential business deals with them; how did they strike you?
Generally, these guys are much tougher and smarter than our representatives. We have people in this country just as smart, but unfortunately, they’re not elected officials. We’re still suffering from a loss of respect that goes back to the Carter Administration, when helicopters were crashing into one another in Iran. That was Carter’s emblem. There he was, being carried off from a race, needing oxygen. I don’t want my President to be carried off a race course. I don’t want my President landing on Austrian soil and falling down the stairs of his airplane. Some of our Presidents have been incredible jerk-offs. We need to be tough.

A favorite word of yours, tough. How do you define it?
Tough is being mentally capable of winning battles against an opponent and doing it with a smile. Tough is winning systematically.

Sometimes you sound like a Presidential candidate stirring up the voters.
I don’t want the Presidency. I’m going to help a lot of people with my foundation—and for me, the grass isn’t always greener.

But if the grass ever did look greener, which political party do you think you’d be more comfortable with?
Well, if I ever ran for office, I’d do better as a Democrat than as a Republican—and that’s not because I’d be more liberal, because I’m conservative. But the working guy would elect me. He likes me. When I walk down the street, those cabbies start yelling out their windows.

Another game: What’s the first thing President Trump would do upon entering the Oval Office?
Many things. A toughness of attitude would prevail. I’d throw a tax on every Mercedes-Benz rolling into this country and on all Japanese products, and we’d have wonderful allies again.


Would you rescue our remaining hostages in Lebanon? Number one, in almost all cases, the hostages were told by our government not to be there. If a man decides to become a professor at Beirut University, when he was told not to be there, and that person is captured—

He deserves it?
You feel very bad for him, but you cannot base foreign policy on his capture. With that being said, when they killed our Colonel Higgins, I would have retaliated militarily immediately. I would have hit something vital to them. And hit it hard. In any other case, I would let the takers of hostages know that they’d have one week to return that hostage. And after that week, all bets would be off. You would not have any more hostages taken, believe me. Weakness always causes problems.

Do you think George Bush is soft?
I like George Bush very much and support him and always will. But I disagree with him when he talks of a kinder, gentler America. I think if this country gets any kinder or gentler, it’s literally going to cease to exist. I think if we had people from the business community—the Carl Icahns, the Ross Perots—negotiating some of our foreign policy, we’d have respect around the world.

What would President Trump’s position on crime be?
I see the values of this country in the way crime is tolerated, where people are virtually afraid to say “I want the death penalty.” Well, I want it. Where has this country gone when you’re not supposed to put in a grave the son of a bitch who robbed, beat, murdered and threw a ninety-year-old woman off the building? Where has this country gone?

What would be some of President Trump’s longer-term views of the future?
I think of the future, but I refuse to paint it. Anything can happen. But I often think of nuclear war.

Nuclear war?
I’ve always thought about the issue of nuclear war; it’s a very important element in my thought process. It’s the ultimate, the ultimate catastrophe, the biggest problem this world has, and nobody’s focusing on the nuts and bolts of it. It’s a little like sickness. People don’t believe they’re going to get sick until they do. Nobody wants to talk about it. I believe the greatest of all stupidities is people’s believing it will never happen, because everybody knows how destructive it will be, so nobody uses weapons. What bullshit.

Does any of that fuzzy thinking exist around the Trump office?
On a much lower level, I would never hire anybody who thinks that way, because he has absolutely no common sense. He’s living in a world of make-believe. It’s like thinking the Titantic can’t sink. Too many countries have nuclear weapons; nobody knows where they’re all pointed, what button it takes to launch them. The bomb Harry Truman dropped on Hiroshima was a toy next to today’s. We have thousands of weapons pointed at us and nobody even knows if they’re going to go in the right direction. They’ve never really been tested. These jerks in charge don’t know how to paint a wall, and we’re relying on them to shoot nuclear missiles to Moscow. What happens if they don’t go there? What happens if our computer systems aren’t working? Nobody knows if this equipment works, and I’ve seen numerous reports lately stating that the probability is they don’t work. It’s a total mess.

And how would President Trump handle it?
He would believe very strongly in extreme military strength. He wouldn’t trust anyone. He wouldn’t trust the Russians; he wouldn’t trust our allies; he’d have a huge military arsenal, perfect it, understand it. Part of the problem is that we’re defending some of the wealthiest countries in the world for nothing…. We’re being laughed at around the world, defending Japan—

Wait. If you believe that the public shares these views, and that you could do the job, why not consider running for President?
I’d do the job as well as or better than anyone else. It’s my hope that George Bush can do a great job.

You categorically don’t want to be President?
I don’t want to be President. I’m one hundred percent sure. I’d change my mind only if I saw this country continue to go down the tubes.

More locally, one of your least favorite political figures was Mayor Ed Koch of New York. You two had a great time going after each other: He called you “piggy, piggy, piggy” and you called him “a moron.” Why do you suppose he lost the election?
He lost his touch for the people. He became arrogant. He not only discarded his friends but was a fool for brutally criticizing them. The corruption was merely a symptom of what had happened to him: He had become extremely nasty, mean-spirited and very vicious, an extremely disloyal human being.

When his friends like Bess Myerson and others were in trouble, he seemed to automatically abandon them, almost before finding out what they’d done wrong. He could think only about his own ass—not the city’s. That was dumb: The only one who didn’t know his administration was crumbling around him was him. Power corrupts.

You probably have more power than Koch did as mayor. And you’re getting more of it all the time. How about power’s corrupting you?
I think power sometimes corrupts- “sometimes” has to be added.

Also on the local scene, there’s a report that you wanted to be an owner of a New York—area baseball team in a proposed new baseball league—despite your bad experience as owner of the New Jersey Generals in the short-lived United States Football League.
That’s not true anymore. It’s not a passion of mine. The sports business is a lousy business. If a player gets hurt or doesn’t perform, he wants to get his money anyway; if he performs better than expected, he wants to renegotiate his contract. I like boxing better.

A clean, forthright sport. As one of Mike Tyson’s promoters, what can you tell us about him?
I know Mike better than anybody and have strong opinions, pro and con. But it’s too early for me to say. I understand his obsessions, everything. And no, I don’t begrudge Don King if he’s able to get Mike Tyson to sign a contract to the benefit of Don King.

You got to know him during his marriage to Robin Givens, didn’t you?
Yeah; I loved it when Robin said she didn’t want any money and then sued him. He won the case against her. She was killed when she started in with the law, when she filed for divorce. Historically, this has been the case with champions. The champ can do no wrong.

How is your marriage?
Just fine. Ivana is a very kind and good woman. I also think she has the instincts and drive of a good manager. She’s focused and she’s a perfectionist.

And as a wife, not a manager?
I never comment on romance…. She’s a great mother, a good woman who does a good job.

How did you feel when José Torres wrote his book, excerpted in Playboy, about Tyson’s sex life—the charges that he beat up women and had wild sexual escapades?
It’s unfortunate for one of the great fighters in history to have all this crap hanging over his head. Or for politicians, for that matter. We’re living in an age when there are no boundaries left, which is unfortunate for our country. The problem is, we’re going to lose good talent because somebody likes looking at pretty women or pretty men.

Somebody’s sex life may mean absolutely nothing to the job at hand, but when the written word gels out, we lose somebody good and the country goes to hell. I know politicians who love women who don’t even want to be known for that—because they might lose the gay vote. OK? If this is the kind of extreme we’re heading toward, we’re really in trouble.


What is marriage to you? Is it monogamous?
I don’t have to answer that. I never speak about my wife—which is one of the advantages of not being a politician. My marriage is and should be a personal thing.

I don’t want to be President. I’m one hundred percent sure. I’d change my mind only if I saw this country continue to go down the tubes.

But you do enjoy flirtations?
I think any man enjoys flirtations, and if he said he didn’t, he’d be lying or he’d be a politician trying to get the extra four votes. I think everybody likes knowing he’s well responded to. Especially as you get into certain strata where there is an ego involved and a high level of success, it’s important. People really like the idea that other people respond well to them.

You and your wife are often a subject of very biting satire for magazines such as Spy, which calls you a “short-fingered vulgarian” and recently published a horrendous close-up photograph of your wife on its cover. How do you feel about that? 

Ten years ago, bad publicity was much harder for me to take than it is now. It is almost irrelevant.

That’s all you can say about Spy? It’s a piece of garbage. We assume you take Forbes magazine more seriously; it claims you’re worth one point five billion dollars. But you say three point seven billion dollars. What’s the right figure?
I don’t say anything. Business Week and Fortune have numbers much higher than Forbes’s. I know many people on the Forbes list who shouldn’t be there. It’s a very inaccurate survey. Malcolm Forbes seems to keep me low. Business Week and Fortune don’t have boats and they couldn’t care less.

Speaking of Malcolm Forbes, why didn’t you accept his invitation to the Morocco bash?
I wish I could have gone, but I couldn’t because of a schedule conflict.

Would you spend three million dollars on a party for yourself?
It was a great investment for Malcolm. He got fifty million dollars’ worth of free publicity. I think he should do it every day of his life. That’s like people who can’t understand why I’m building an even more spectacular boat than the Trump Princess. It’s going to be world class, beyond belief.

Let’s talk about your main interest—buildings. Architecture critic Paul Goldberger of The New York Times hasn’t been kind to Trump buildings, panning them as garish and egotistical.

Paul Goldberger has extraordinarily bad taste. He reviews buildings that are failures and loves them. Paul suffers from one malady that I don’t believe is curable. As an architecture critic, you can’t afford the luxury of having bad taste. The fact that he works for the Times, unfortunately, makes his taste important. And that’s why you see some monster buildings going up. If Paul left the Times or the Times left him, you would find that his opinion meant nothing.

But it’s not just the architecture critics who criticize you for stamping your name on everything you own. Are you going to continue doing that forever?
No. I own the Grand Hyatt Hotel; I don’t call it the Trump Hotel. I own the Plaza Hotel, not the Trump Plaza. But I will say that from a marketing point of view, putting my name on buildings is a plus. I’m now building Trump Palace and if I called it something else, I would get hundreds of dollars less per square foot. On the Trump Shuttle, I’ve owned it for six months and we are already taking over fifty percent of the market in Washington, Boston and New York. If I called it anything but the Trump Shuttle, it wouldn’t be nearly so successful. The Tour de Trump was actually going to be called the Tour de Jersey. We had four hundred and seventy-three reporters at a news conference for a damn bicycle race; how many would have been there for the Tour de Jersey? We would have gotten nowhere.

You’re involved in so many activities, deals, promotions—in the deep of the night, after the reporters all leave your conferences, are you ever satisfied with what you’ve accomplished?
I’m too superstitious to be satisfied. I don’t dwell on the past. People who do that go right down the tubes. I’m never self-satisfied. Life is what you do while you’re waiting to die. You know, it is all a rather sad situation.

Life? Or death?
Both. We’re here and we live our sixty, seventy or eighty years and we’re gone. You win, you win, and in the end, it doesn’t mean a hell of a lot. But it is something to do—to keep you interested.

Do you agree with the T-shirt that says, WHOEVER HAS THE MOST TOYS WINS?
Depends on your definition of winning. Some of my friends are unbelievably successful and miserable people. I truly believe that someone successful is never really happy, because dissatisfaction is what drives him. I’ve never met a successful person who wasn’t neurotic. It’s not a terrible thing … it’s controlled neuroses.

What do you mean?
Controlled neuroses means having a tremendous energy level, an abundance of discontent that often isn’t visible. It’s also not oversleeping. I don’t sleep more than four hours a night. I have friends who need twelve hours a night and I tell them they’re at a major disadvantage in terms of playing the game.

And when you’re up at night, you’re totally alone?
Yeah, yeah, because it’s a little tough to find anyone up at four in the morning.

You mentioned that you have to be born with “it.” Do you suppose your children inherited “it” from you?
Statistically, my children have a very bad shot. Children of successful people are generally very, very troubled, not successful. They don’t have the right shtick. You never know until they’re tested. But I do well with my children.

Do you think they will have to make it?
I would love them to be in business with me, but ninety-five percent of those children fail in a sophisticated big business. It takes confidence, intelligence, shtick. If any one of these traits is missing, you’re not going to make it.

You’ve always said that you earned, not inherited, your empire, that adversity and uphill struggles made you stronger. What kind of adversity can your children experience?
I’m a strong believer in genes, that my kids can be brought up without adversity and respond well if they have the genes. I have a friend who is extraordinarily smart. But he never became successful, because he couldn’t take pressure. He was buying a home and it was literally killing him—a man of forty with an I.Q. of probably a hundred and ninety. He called me one day for the umpteenth time, worrying about his mortgage and I was sitting in my chair, thinking to myself, Here I am, buying the shuttle, the Plaza Hotel, and I don’t lose an ounce of sleep over any of it. That’s lucky genes.

Even with good genes, how can your kids ever feel they’ve lived up to what you’ve accomplished?
I don’t know that they’ll have to. I would be happier if they were able to preserve rather than build. I’m not looking to have a great deal maker as a son, though I’d certainly like everything to run beautifully when I’m not around. I’d be happier if my son became a great manager rather than a great entrepreneur.

My kids are extremely well adjusted. But I wonder what they think when they walk into Mar-a-Lago and see ceilings that rise to heights that nobody’s ever seen before. And when my daughter’s date picks her up at Trump Tower in a few years and sees the living room, how will he feel when he takes her out and tries to impress her with a studio apartment?

Knowing all this, are you taking any precautions?
It’s somewhat late. And I don’t think a paper route would work. But my son works on the boat.

When you think about role models from history, what figures particularly inspired you?
I could say Winston Churchill, but … I’ve always thought that Louis B. Mayer led the ultimate life, that Flo Ziegfeld led the ultimate life, that men like Darryl Zanuck and Harry Cohn did some creative and beautiful things. The ultimate job for me would have been running MGM in the Thirties and Forties—pre-television.

There was incredible glamour and style in those days that’s gone now. And that’s when you could control situations. In those days, when your great actor was an alcoholic, and nobody ever found out—that was having tremendous control over things, which would be impossible today.

You talk about glamour and style being gone—but isn’t that what you tried to bring back to New York?
Yes, but not in show business, in my business. The Plaza Hotel is far more valuable than any movie I could make. If I put together a string of movies that were all hits, I couldn’t have made anywhere near what I made in real estate. I believe I’ve added show business to the real-estate business, and that’s been a positive for my properties and in my life.

So building that second huge yacht isn’t an act of gaudy excess but another act in the show?
Well, it draws people. It will be the eighth wonder of the world and will create an aura that seems to work. It will cost me two hundred million dollars. But I don’t need it! I could be very happy living in a one-bedroom apartment. I used to live that life. In the early Seventies, I lived in a studio apartment overlooking a water tank.

If you were starting over again, in what business would you choose to make your fortune?
Good question…. There’s something about mother earth that’s awfully good, and mother earth is still real estate. With the right financing, you’ve essentially invested no money. Publishing, movies, broadcasting are tougher, and there aren’t too many Rupert Murdochs, Si Newhouses, Robert Maxwells and Punch Sulzbergers. I’ll stick to real estate.

When someone tries to sucker-punch me, when they’re after my ass, I push back a hell of a lot harder than I was pushed in the first place.

What about the stock market?
It’s a crap shoot. Real estate is something solid. It’s brick, mortar.

Do you regret your statements to the press after the October 1987 crash, when you seemed to gloat about getting out in time when others were wiped out?
No. I didn’t gloat. Somebody reported that I was out of the market and I confirmed it. I don’t know if that’s talent or luck or instinct. I then went back into the market after the crash. I think the cash market is the great one right now—cash is king, and that’s one of the beauties of the casino business.

You seem very pleasant and charming during interviews, yet you talk constantly about toughness. Do you put on an act for us?
I think everybody has to have some kind of filtering system. I’m very fair and I have had the same people working for me for years. Rarely does anybody leave me. But when somebody tries to sucker-punch me, when they’re after my ass, I push back a hell of a lot harder than I was pushed in the first place. If somebody tries to push me around, he’s going to pay a price. Those people don’t come back for seconds. I don’t like being pushed around or taken advantage of. And that’s one of the problems with our country today. This country is being pushed around by everyone—

About your own toughness….
Well, as I said, I study people and in every negotiation, I weigh how tough I should appear. I can be a killer and a nice guy. You have to be everything. You have to be strong. You have to be sweet. You have to be ruthless. And I don’t think any of it can be learned. Either you have it or you don’t. And that is why most kids can get straight A’s in school but fail in life.

Is there a master plan to your deal making or is it all improvisational?
It’s much more improvisational than people might think.

As you continue to make more deals, as you accumulate more and more, there’s a central question that arises about Donald Trump: How much is enough?
As long as I enjoy what I’m doing without getting bored or tired … the sky’s the limit.


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 ..."



 


 CHALLENGE:  Dear President Trump, I am a survivor - of SAH@MCA [a kind of human brain stroke]. 
 As you may know, Children's neurosurgeon Victor Perry saved my life [circa 12-18-2012];   
Apparently [with the help of God], so that, I could challenge you to a debate (today)   
re: The merits of "Socialized Medicine".
So Sir, please consider yourself - with great respect - for your important National office - "challenged"
- to a duel of words.  I look forward to hearing from you. - Susan    < contact >    




h


  
 :: 
Donald Trump > "Clear and Present Danger" TO THE USA 
 WIKIPEDIAWashington Post1,
  Newsweek, WSJ, Real Clear Politics  < VIDEO < MSNBC ... 


 END 


  source: https://pressofatlanticcity.com/gallery/thirty-years-ago-today-trump-taj-mahal-opened-its-doors-take-a-look-back/collection_d2f0c34c-b5ea-11e4-8dd7-b75a142ae16b.html#3 

FEATURED SPECIAL REPORT

Thirty years ago today Trump Taj Mahal opened its doors. Take a look back

On April 2 1990, Trump Taj Mahal, the twelfth and largest casino in Atlantic City, opens for business. Dubbed the 'eighth wonder of the world,' it cost in excess of $1 billion to build. Trump glitz and glamour is clearly evident everywhere, from the themed decor to the grand opening laser and fireworks display. Guest stars include Michael Jackson and Merv Griffin, while New Jersey Governor Jim Florio receives a personal tour of the facility from Trump himself. In the following photos, take a look back at one of the most anticipated casinos ever to be built in Atlantic City. The property closed in October 2016. It was later reopened as the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City

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February 4, 1987. Frank Dumont, architect for Resorts Hotel & Casino, unveils his drawings for the new Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City.. Press of Atlantic City photo by Scott Stetzer. Historical photo archives

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November 15, 1988. Construction continues at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort in Atlantic City, still 18 months away from opening. Press of Atlantic City photo by Scott Stetzer. Historical photo archives.

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March 21, 1989. Work continues on a parking lot for Taj Mahal on Huron Avenue in Atlantic City. Brigantine residents, angry over the additional congestion and traffic the lot will create around the Brigantine Bridge, later protest the parking lot. Press of Atlantic City photo by Scott Stetzer. Historical photo archives

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October 7, 1986. Work continues on an underground roadway to ease traffic around the Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City. Press of Atlantic City photo by Vernon Ogrodnek. Historical photo archives

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January 16, 1987. The Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City takes shape. The casino will open April 2, 1990. Press of Atlantic City photo by Danny Drake. Historical photo archives

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January 16, 1987. Construction get underway for the The Taj Mahal. Press of Atlantic City photo by Danny Drake. Historical photo archives

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August 16, 1989. A helicopter lifts the letter A in Trump Taj Mahal sign as workers maneuver it into place. Press of Atlantic City photo by Ben Fogletto. Historical photo archives

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December 21, 1987. Trump Taj Mahal is under construction. Press of Atlantic City  photo by Vernon Ogrodnek. Historical photo archives

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September 30, 1988. Jerome Ingrum, a cement worker at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic CIty works on the broad sweep of steps that will lead from the Boardwalk to the casino-hotel when completed. Press of Atlantic City photo by Charles Neill. HIstorical photo archives

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March 29, 1990. Donald Trump appears at a Casino Control Commission hearing. Press of Atlantic City photo by Scott Stetzer. Historical photo archives

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November 28, 1989. Robert Trump, left, and Walter Haybert look over the construction on the casino floor of Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. Press of Atlantic City photo by Vernon Ogrodnek. Historical photo archives

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March 21, 1990. Workers Bil Lozier and Steve Jurek untie the giant stone elephants at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. Press of Atlantic City file photo by Ben Walters. Historical photo archives  

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March 5, 1990. Atlantic City Boardwalk strollers check out the ongoing construction at the Trump Taj Mahal. Press of Atlantic City photo by Ben Fogletto, Historical photo archives.

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March 17, 1990. Chefs at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino show their signature dishes during the pre-opening of the newest casino in Atlantic City. Press of Atlantic City photo by Vernon Ogrodnek. Historical photo archives

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March 12, 1990. A signature dish is in keeping with the theme at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City. Press of Atlantic City photo by Vernon Ogrodnek. Historical photo archives

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November 29, 1989. Trump Taj Mahal Casino is in the final months of construction, with an opening scheduled for spring 1990. Press of Atlantic City photo by Vernon Ogrodnek. Historical photo archives 

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March 29, 1990. Employees model costumes for Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City. They are, left to right, Jeff Wilson, Alison Mosley, Kelly Grant and Scheryll Anderson. Press of Atlantic City photo by Ben Fogletto. Historical photo archives

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March 27, 1990. An employee models a costume which will be worn at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City. Press of Atlantic City photo by Ben Fogletto. Historical photo archives

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March 27, 1990. Seamstresses and tailors sew costumes in the Trump Taj Mahal Image Management Sewing Shop in Atlantic City. Doris Thomas is in front. Press of Atlantic City photo by Ben Fogletto. Historical photo archives

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March 27, 1990. An inside look at the Trump Taj Mahal Image Management Costume Warehouse. Press of Atlantic City photo by Ben Fogletto. Historical photo archives

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March 27, 1990. Taj image management seamstress Bobbie Murphy does alterations on John Sabo's outfit. Press of Atlantic City photo by Ben Fogletto. Historical photo archives

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March 27, 1990. Taj image management seamstress Bobbie Murphy does alterations on John Sabo's outfit. Press of Atlantic City photo by Ben Fogletto. Historical photo archives

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November 28, 1989. Bob Levy, an electrician from Atlantic City, uses an instrument to align electrical circuitry in one of the meeting rooms/ballrooms in the Taj Mahal. Press of Atlantic City photo by Vernon Ogrodnek. Historical photo archives . 

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March 27, 1990. Taj Mahal image management headwear. Press of Atlantic City photo by Ben Fogletto. Historical photo archives

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March 31, 1990. Electrician Jack Jamieson of Pittstone, Pa., with Calvi Electric in Atlantic City, puts the finishing touches on a chandelier in the Taj Mahal hotel lobby. Press of Atlantic City photo by Ben Fogletto. Historical photo archives.

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March 31, 1990. Workers finish work on the lobby escalators in the Taj Mahal. Press of Atlantic City photo by Ben Fogletto. Historical photo archives.

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April 2, 1990. Donald Trump greets visitors on opening day at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City. The casino floor is in the background. Press of Atlantic City photo by Vernon Ogrodnek. Historical photo archives.

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April 2, 1990. Donald Trump chats with visitors in the lobby on opening day at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City. Press of Atlantic City photo by Vernon Ogrodnek. Historical photo archives.

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April 2, 1990. Donald Trump talks to the media and waves to visitors on opening day at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City. The casino floor is in the background. Press of Atlantic City photo by Vernon Ogrodnek. Historical photo archives.

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April 2, 1990. Donald Trump talks to the media on opening day at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City. The casino floor is in the background. Press of Atlantic City photo by Vernon Ogrodnek. Historical photo archives.

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April 6, 1990. Special guest Michael Jackson appears with Donald Trump at Trump Taj Mahal for the opening festivities. Press of Atlantic City photo by Ben Fogletto. Historical photo archives

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April 2, 1990. Donald Trump talks to the media on opening day at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City. The casino floor is in the background. Press of Atlantic City photo by Vernon Ogrodnek. Historical photo archives.

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April 5, 1990. Donald Trump and Merv Griffin appear together during opening festivities at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City. Press of Atlantic City photo by Scott Stetzer. Historical photo archives.

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April 5, 1990. Actors parade through the lobby of the Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City during opening festivities. Press of Atlantic City photo by Ben Fogletto. Historical photo archives.

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April 2, 1990. People wait to get onto the casino floor on opening day at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City. Press of Atlantic City photo by Vernon Ogrodnek. Historical photo archives.

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April 2, 1990. Patrons enter the Trump Taj Mahal Casino from the Atlantic City Boardwalk on opening day. Press of Atlantic City photo by Vernon Ogrodnek. Historical photo archives.

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April 5, 1990. N.J. Governor James Florio and Donald Trump attend opening festivities at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City. 

Press of Atlantic City photo by Ben Fogletto. Historical photo archives.

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April 5, 1990. N.J. Governor James Florio and Donald Trump attend opening festivities at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City. 

Press of Atlantic City photo by Ben Fogletto. Historical photo archives.

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April 3, 1990. Casino Patrons crowd behind the gates on opening day at Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City and wait to gain access to the casino floor. Press of Atlantic City photo by Walter O'Brien. Historical photo archives

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April 2, 1990. Players fill up the roulette and blackjack tables in lavish surroundings during the opening day at the Trump Taj Mahal. Press of Atlantic City photo by Vernon Ogrodnek. Historical photo archives

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April 2, 1990. Players fill up the roulette tables during the opening day at the Trump Taj Mahal. Press of Atlantic City photo by Vernon Ogrodnek. Historical photo archives

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April 29, 1990. TRUMP PROTESTERS.  Angry Brigantine residents protest a parking lot designed to accommodate employees of Trump's Taj Mahal Casino Report, contending it will worsen an already bad traffic situation. Press of Atlantic City photo by Vernon Ogrodnek. Historical photo archives 

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April 2, 1990. Trump Taj Mahal officials allow a look inside the Rajah Suite at newest casino in Atlantic City. Press of Atlantic City photo by Vernon Ogrodnek. Historical photo archives.

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April 5, 1990. Valets stationed at the entrance of the Trump Taj Mahal Casino attend to guests as they arrive at the resort. Press of Atlantic City photo by Ben Fogletto. Historical photo archives

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April 2, 1990. Patrons crowd the slot machines on opening day at Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort. Press of Atlantic City photo by Vernon Ogrodnek. Historical photo archives

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April 4, 1990. Bob Klinger, of Mays Landing, plants tulips for the opening of the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort. Press of Atlantic City photo by Scott Stetzer. Historical photo archives.

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