The FRONTLINE Interviews
Alan Marcus
Trump PR Adviser
Alan Marcus is a public relations consultant who worked with Donald Trump and the Trump Organization in the 1990s.
The following interview was conducted by the Kirk Documentary Group’s Mike Wiser for FRONTLINE on March 12, 2024, prior to Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race. It has been edited for clarity and length.
This interview appears in:
TOP
Alan Marcus
Chapters
Text Interview:
Highlight text to share it
Donald Trump in the 1980s
When you first meet him in the mid-1980s, who is that Donald Trump?What is he like to be around?
He's very, very enticing when you first meet him.He's very embracing.People want to be near him.He makes you want to be near him.And then you soon realize that it's a phony.It's Burt Lancaster in a movie.But he will tell you all about himself, how great he is in the first 30 seconds you're with him.And you feel like, “Boy, I should really feel honored just to be here.” And then you wake up and you say, “Wait a minute.What's so great?” You hear about the Trump Organization.Well, the Trump Organization was a few people; it wasn't a big deal.The casino company was a big deal, except that Donald didn't really have a major role in that except for the grandiose—for upstreaming money.He charged every casino a lot, many millions of dollars to use his name on casinos he basically owned, and he ran them into the ground.
That was before I got there.When I got there, they were coming out of that.And we did the first public offering, which was selling his shares of the company basically to the public.So he got bailed out of about $970 million in debt.It was a good deal for the public, a good deal for him.
But then, instead of allowing professional managers to manage the company, he would interfere, because what Donald really cares about is Donald.Donald's an entertainer.Donald should be the brand manager in a corporate structure.He shouldn't be a chief operating officer or a chief executive officer for certain.He's a brand manager.
And if you want to sell an apartmentin Trump Tower, he's your man; he's your guy.He can sell with the best of them.But if you want to manage and make sure that that unit is maintained and the building is maintained and the building grows in value, he's not your guy.
So with the casinos—I'll race ahead, and then we can come back if you'd like.The casino company started doing quite well.It became a publicly traded company.There were good professional managers, but they were getting too much of the credit for the success of the company, and Donald doesn't like to share credit.Donald has the problem that a 3-year-old would have who has to split attention.They don't like it.And Donald got rid of some of the professional managers he had, one in particular, who were getting too much credit for the relative success of the company, because he didn't want to share that stage; he didn't want to share that spotlight.…
And I think he shows that later as you go forward into his presidency.He couldn't deal with the tail; he couldn't deal with working with people; he couldn't deal with somebody getting credit.Usually you would see a president—presidents I've known—the first thing they'll do at the State of the Union message is they'll credit the secretary of state for making peace with Italy or whatever it might be.Donald can't do that.He could never say that.
The only time he ever said anything about me, frankly, was at the topping-off ceremony of Trump International Tower.I think it was on CNN.He said, "Everybody knows Alan Marcus.He's got the worst golf swing in the world, but if you got to sink a putt on the 18th hole and win the money, you want Alan putting that ball, and you know, he is the richest PR guy." Now, he said that because to him, that's the measure of if you're good: You're rich.He would love to tell people, “Alan Marcus, you know, he's on TV all the time.” That was a very small part of my life, but to him it was a big part of life.
I think Donald always wanted to be an impresario of sorts.When he bought the Miss Universe pageant, none of us knew about it.I think we found out about it the day it was announced, and it was never integrated into the casino company.It's entertainment; the casinos are entertainment.It would have made a lot of sense, a lot of synergies that you could have brought about.After all, the Miss America pageant had been in Atlantic City all those many, many years.He didn't do that.
Why did he want to have the Miss Universe pageant?Well, I think two things.One, he did it in conjunction with NBC, and I think later that did help him with "The Apprentice."And secondly, he liked being around women.He liked being—the association of that.He got his daughter involved; his wife was involved.He divorced his wife during the process, but she was involved.
But it's not what a businessman would do.A businessman of a major organization would not all of a sudden walk into the office and say, “By the way, I bought the Miss Universe pageant.” And we say, “That's great.Why?How does that fit in?What are we doing here?”
So Donald, when you say what's your reaction to Donald, your reaction quickly changes, because as you get to know him, you say the myth—the emperor really doesn't have any clothes.He's not the smart guy you think he is based on what you may have read in <i>The Art of the Deal</i>.You also quickly find out he didn't write <i>The Art of the Deal</i>.
He's not the person that some of the writers write about because those writers really weren't writing a legitimate story, some of them.And then you realize that the story that some other writers had written, which you’d have said were overly critical, weren't overly critical at all; they were quite accurate.
When you talk about <i>The Art of the Deal</i>, when I started with him, he called me one day, and he said, "I have the most beautiful woman in the world sitting across from me.I know you can appreciate this, Alan." I said, "I have a great appreciation for your love of beauty." And I know he's on the speakerphone, and I said, "Donald, how can I help you?" He says, "Well, she's going to do the book." I said, "Donald, what book?" And he said, "The Comeback book." The Comeback book?
Now, I knew that Tony Schwartz was supposed to do a follow-up book.Donald decided that this woman should do the book because she was gorgeous.She would work a lot cheaper than Tony Schwartz.And he said, "And everybody will want to interview her." I said, “Donald, they're supposed to want to interview you, not the co-author."
And she wrote the book.There were other stories attached to that also.But the fact is that Tony Schwartz, who had done a great job of creating the myth of Donald, was cast aside because somebody else was better looking and worked cheaper, and that's why Tony Schwartz probably is, to this day, pretty upset about that.He has good reason to be.…
‘It’s all about Donald’
It's interesting.You tell the story about him turning down these business deals that would be very successful because he's not going to have his name on it, because he's not going to get the credit.What is it about—because what we're trying to figure out about Donald Trump is like what drives him.What is it about Donald Trump that [he] would be willing to sacrifice a business decision—
Nothing.
—for the name?
It's all about Donald.All Donald, all the time.That's all he cares about.It's total narcissism.It's very simple: Donald is like the 3-year-old who can't play with other 3-year-olds, who cries if you take a toy away, and you'd say, “Well, why don't you share it with the other kids?” He doesn't want to share.He never did share.As his older sister used to tell me all the time, he wouldn't—never shared anything.Donald is the most selfish individual I've ever seen, I've ever met.And that's OK; I mean, he's entitled.He's also the most disloyal person.And you can always tell somebody who's disloyal by saying, “I'm the loyalest guy you've ever met.” And you think he probably is.Then you find out he's not loyal at all; he's totally disloyal.
He overcomes a lot of his weaknesses by claiming that he doesn't have that weakness, and in fact he has just the opposite as a strength.And when you get to know him as long as I and others have known him, much longer in much more “intimate circumstances,” you see that pattern.In Maggie Haberman's book <i>Confidence Man</i>, she points it out very, very clearly.He's a man with few moves that are repeated over and over and over again.And that's Donald.Very simple.Everybody puts complexity behind Donald.There is no complexity.It's all simplicity.It's all about Donald.
I remember people close to him warning, saying, “Don't get too close.Right now you're his friend, you're his closest friend.” And I knew how that worked, because I, frankly, represent a lot of people not quite like Donald, but close enough, and big names, who were a little infatuated with themselves.
What I didn't realize was, it wasn't just infatuation.It was, there's no there there.There's no fastball.Donald could talk about wonderful things, about how to make money, but make money—how to get the money to his pocket, not how to take care of debt holders, employees, certainly shareholders, other people in the organization.He didn't talk about building a great company.He talked about building Donald.
And I think you see that when you look through much of what's been published about him, but also in the White House.When you look at—the great example was COVID.They started having COVID meetings, and Donald should get very good marks for the fact that the administration had Operation Warp Speed and worked with the pharmaceutical industry to develop vaccines.And they had a good distribution system.I had actually suggested they make it a Manhattan Project and bring in the Army to do it because they know logistics, but they did this.
And then they started to have daily briefings, which were really, really not a good idea, because they were being done politically, not professionally.And the vice president was going to be, as the head of the task force, was going to be leading the briefings.Well, Donald didn't like that because all of a sudden, it was Mike Pence; the camera was on Pence.
Next thing you know, Pence is out; Donald's doing the briefings.And it became the nightly game show.I mean, people tuned in to laugh.He was awful.He didn't know what he was talking about because he doesn't pay attention.You can't brief Donald in advance and have him go out and say, know the facts; he doesn't pay close enough attention.
… That was the same guy who was your client all those years before.
Yeah, yeah.People from the press in particular would call me and say, "Any of this surprising?" I'd say, "No.I warned you in 2015.I told you what it was going to be like." "Yes, you did, but we didn't believe you." "I know you didn't believe me, because you said nobody could be like that because he's Donald Trump; he's the richest man in the world; he's worth $10 billion." You know, rat-a-tat-tat comes back, and then they find out, you know what?It was all a myth.It was all made up.It was all him telling the story that he wanted.It's a narrative, a false narrative.It's a narrative he believes, by the way; I have no doubt of that.
And then when you when you say something against Donald, the first thing he says is, "I never knew him.We never really worked together.I really didn't know him." And you have to laugh because a lot of those people knew him pretty well, and he knew him pretty well.But that's Donald's immediate response: "He couldn't have known me because he would know I'm great if he really knew me." So he kind of believes that.
I think that his presidency ended with those briefings, frankly.I think had he turned COVID fully over to experts, that he had enough of a grip on America, that people were especially willing to give you the benefit of the doubt during that kind of an emergency and tragedy, that he would have been reelected.But as it was, we had people—we had freezer trucks lined up.We had people dying.We had the sense that nobody was doing anything right.And as the head of the government, if the government's not doing things right, he pays the price.And it could have been made–people could have been made aware the government was doing things right through Operation Warp Speed, among other things.He wanted—he demanded that the country open up by Easter.Then it was that the country close.Then it was he wanted everything open again.And his MAGA crowd didn't know which way to go.It was like they were in a carousel of some sort because he kept, as Donald is wont to do, he kept shifting with the wind—you know, whoever talked to him last, whoever gave him an idea that he thought sounded pretty good, or, "They were good-looking people, so I think I'll have them go out front," type of thing, which Donald does.
And that's the guy who you knew, who didn't want—who would sabotage the deal because his name wouldn't be up there.You recognized that.
Absolutely.Anybody—I'm not certain I know of anyone who worked closely with Donald, who knew him well and maybe liked him—I mean, he can be likable—who voted for him, because they understood his weaknesses.We're not looking for a brand manager; we're looking for the president of United States.That's a big difference.
When he says he wants to shoot generals or kill generals or charge them with treason, he means it.Now, I don't know that he would follow through with that, but he would do the same thing in his company if you disagreed with him.You can't disagree.You can't get your picture taken.I was asked to bring pictures with Donald.I don't have pictures with Donald; I avoided them because you get your pictures, he doesn't like that.He wants the full credit.You don't see my name.“Only when it was something bad,” a spokesman for Trump said.“If it's anything good, it's in Donald's voice.It has to be.” As it should be, by the way; that's appropriate.I'm not being—I'm not criticizing him for that.It's the way it should be.
The problem is sometimes Donald says things—he doesn't exactly tell the truth when he says it.He may embellish.We've gotten used to that now.I think that his salacious attacks on people have always been there.But it was private.He would do it—I will tell you that he did it in terms of certain public officials, and I would tell him, “Donald, just don't do that." But he loses his temper with it.He thinks that he should be treated differently.
Donald Trump as a Product of Queens
… Trump comes out of Queens.Why does that matter?
Queens is an enclave.Somebody else comes out of Queens, and that's Andrew Cuomo.Two kids from Queens, close in age.Both had fathers who kind of were up there, if you will.Both gotten in the same kind of trouble with hubris.I think Andrew's smarter than Donald.I think Donald's a bigger showman.
But I think that what they both do is they come out of that, the Queens genre, if you will, and they feel that they're better.They’re born in Forest Hills, in Donald's case; you know, we're better than the other people that are around.
It's also not a racially diverse area.I think that's reflected a great deal in Donald; I can't speak to Andrew on that, but in Donald.Donald is not somebody who embraces race.I think people out in that area of Queens, especially in that time when Donald was growing up—Donald and I are the same age—were very proud of the fact that they did not have a mixed community, that that had retained its whiteness.Donald's father blocked Blacks from getting apartments, which became famous, somewhat famous later, but it wasn't just then; it had been a long period of time.
When Donald talked to me about collecting rents for his father—they owned a building in East Orange, New Jersey, in fact—he's like, "Oh, my God, God, those Blacks; you don't know what it was like.I got out of that.I wasn't going to work for him." And I said, "Well, they're making money, Donald; you might want to think about that."
And Donald wanted the glitter.He didn't like—he outgrew Queens, because it was a part of New York—and I'm sure you're going to go out there and look, but you'll see—it doesn't reflect Manhattan; it doesn't reflect Madison Avenue, Fifth Avenue, the 50s, the Plaza Hotel.Maybe there's a Motel 6 out by the airport.And Donald didn't—he wanted to get away from that.But it's inbred in him.So you can take the kid out of Queens, but you can't take Queens out of the kid, and I think that that's very accurate in terms of Donald.
It's well known that he went to the New York Military Academy.He went to the New York Military Academy because he wasn't doing well in school or anything else.Donald would lead you to believe that he became the most popular guy there.That's probably not the case.In fact, I've never met anybody who liked him there.And maybe some of that's jealousy.
Donald was a good athlete.He is a good athlete.I mean, I've played golf with him.He's a good golfer.He's not as good as he says he is.He cheats at everything.Nobody wants to be his partner.But it's another example of where if he did—if he just took his natural ability and put that to work, he'd be fine.
I'll give you a story about golf.Donald, when I was playing with him, said he was a scratch golfer, which meant that he would get 18 pars on 18 holes.The reality is, he was probably a 7 or 8 handicap, which means he'd get seven or eight bogeys.But Donald couldn't stand the thought of not being perfect, and so he would say he was a scratch golfer, which meant that he and his partner were now seven shots down before they ever hit the first ball.Frequently I ended up being his partner, so I ended up being seven shots down, and he doesn't care about that.He would rather lose than be thought of anything less than perfect.…
Trump’s Family
And the family dynamics?I mean, we know his sister.What did you hear about his dad and his mom and the kids?
Well, I knew his dad.I knew his dad.I knew his mother.
What were they like?
His mother was very hard to know.She didn't say much.She was very cold.Apparently, she had not been very warm since the kids were born.I will say that Donald doesn't like people who get sick.He doesn't like sick people. I remember I ran into his assistant at the midtown offices of Columbia-Presbyterian University Hospital, who was a client of ours, and she said to me, "Please don't tell Donald you saw me here." She was frightened.I said, "Norma, of course not." And I asked another person why; he said, "Oh, because he doesn't like sick people, and Norma knows that."
Donald's sister said, "Could you please tell your friend to go visit his mother?" And I said, "Well, why don't you tell him?" She says, "Well, because you're a man, and I'm a woman, and he'll listen to you." And I would say, "Donald, why don't you go visit your mother?" And he says, "I do visit my mother." And he saw her on Christmas or Easter.
But not a warm relationship with his mom?
No, he doesn't have a warm relationship with anybody.You're suggesting that Donald would give of himself and exude warmth to somebody.I saw him do that with his father until his father became somewhat senile and aged, and then that warmth wasn't there any longer.But then again, his father wasn't around that much any longer.
So tell me about his father.
His father was a—he stood out.He was a tall man, had a mustache.His appearance was always pretty perfect.He was very gracious.He was a generous type of person, personally.I remembered a cocktail party, a small party at Maryanne's house out in the country, he was serving hors d'oeuvres; he was just going around and making people comfortable.
He once said to me, "Thanks so much for helping Donald," and that was what he cared about.He slipped into senility soon after I started representing Donald, so I didn't—I probably saw him more before I represented Donald at family-type events than I did afterwards.
I did not know the degree to which Donald was being subsidized by his father.I don't think anybody did.Certainly I wasn't in a position to know that.He was very supportive of Donald.I think he—I don't think he ever cared that he had undermined his eldest son, Freddy, who I did not know; he passed before I knew the family.But it was apparent that Freddie had suffered from the sense of failure in terms of in his father's eyes, and I think Donald probably accelerated that.And Robert, who worked with his father, and Donald did not get along.
But I think that his father still wanted to see and do anything he could to made Donald a success.It was very important to him.He was very proud of Donald.He was—he saw himself in Donald, I think, some of the things that he had wanted to be, like the fact that—you know, Fred was the guy in Brooklyn and Queens.He was part of the Democratic machine.You got building permits by being that way.And Donald was like that also, but Donald had crossed the line, tried to become more into society, if you will.But he could never leave Queens behind, never leave Brooklyn behind in terms of how people looked at him.
Donald's dad really was the key figure in that family.And I remember at his funeral, Robert and Elizabeth even, the other sister that nobody knows about—Maryanne wrote, gave a terrific eulogy.Donald spoke about himself.And Fred wouldn't have minded that.Fred would have understood that that's what Donald is; that's what Donald does.
And Donald, I have a feeling, had been getting away with that kind of stuff since he was a kid.But based on what Maryanne had told me on numerous occasions, that his father would whack him a little bit, but the fact was, his father kind of liked Donald's independence, which he saw as a strength much more so than a weakness.
Do you know the dynamic with Fred Jr., because it sounds like such a shaping event for Donald as he talks about it, to see Fred fall out of the family and the alcoholism and his father saying he's not a killer, he's not a winner.
No, he's a loser, which is not a winner, but being a loser is—there were two things with that.One, Donald never touched a drop of alcohol, never once.And he talked to me about that.He drank a lot of Diet Coke, but never coffee, never alcohol.And he'd say, "Oh, my brother Fred, oh, God, I watched him deteriorate." He never said, "I helped him deteriorate," as you learn later.And when I first was exposed to that, I thought, my gosh, here's a guy who's your older brother; he was really close.They weren't close.They weren't particularly close because Donald was the crown prince after the prince of Wales.And he—there are many—I'm not sure I know this firsthand. There are many who feel that he helped push Fred.…
What did Maryanne tell you about Trump as a kid, as a little boy, what he was like?
Well, he wanted his own way all the time.He once took Robert's blocks and glued them together, which of course—he wanted to show that they could be a skyscraper.I don't know if it was because it was a skyscraper; I think he did it to annoy Robert.
And people that I've spoken to have always said he was that kind of a kid.He'd pick up his bats and balls and go home if he didn't get his way.By the way, that's not unique; it happens with a lot of people.I think he's that way in business.He was that way certainly with Hard Rock casinos, the Rank Organization.He was that way with Hilton.He was that way in the White House.So why would anybody be surprised that it hadn't started out in Queens or Queens Village when he was growing up?
He was a very selfish, self-centered infant, juvenile and person.He's been that way with his wives.He's been that way with his, I think, with his kids, who love him and adore him.Either they're great actors or they're—it's clear.But other than that, you don't see very much; you don't see Donald with longstanding friends.You don't see a lot of people say, “I've been a friend of Donald Trump's for 40 years, and what a great guy.”
Trump Makes His Way in Manhattan
… He, as you’ve mentioned, he comes from Queens.He moves to Manhattan, and he sort of seems to be wanting to make a name for himself.And we've talked a little bit about his need for having his name out there.The question is, what is it that drives him?Because it's not money, because he's giving up deals that would give him money.What drives him into Manhattan and into—
Celebrity.One word: celebrity.It's the bright lights, celebrity.The women are a lot nicer in Manhattan than Queens.I think that the—what drove anybody in that period of time in the '60s/early '70s into Manhattan?It's the bright lights.I did it.I was from New Jersey; he was from Queens.
It's not hard to—it's not hard to understand why you would make that move.What's hard to understand is what he, once he was there, how he handled that move.He got a limo with his name, Trump, on it.You take cabs; you don't do that.
When he hired Roy Cohn and Cohn then brought him into Studio 54 and Le Club and other places like that, you probably—that's one way of going.There are other ways of going, but he went with Roy Cohn, and Roy Cohn became what people think modeled Donald.I don't think that's the case.I think it was Donald's father who modeled Donald.I think people forget that the real inspiration for Donald Trump as he is today was Fred Trump way back when, who probably was an America Firster during the 1930s, has reportedly was at pro-German rallies.1I could appreciate—I can understand that, not support it, but I could see it.
1
The Washington Post: In 1927, Donald Trump’s father was arrested after a Klan riot in Queens
I think Donald is very much like his father.I don't think he's at all like Roy Cohn, frankly, except in terms of being nasty, ruthless, self-centered and a lot of those other characteristics.But his father had that as well.His father was a little smoother, frankly, than Roy Cohn and Donald.But I think that his father doesn't get the credit he deserves for being the model for Donald.
This is instructive: One of the first times I got to know Donald, to the point we were talking personally, he asked me two questions.The first was, "How did you get out of the Army?" And I said, "Well, what makes you think I got out of the Army?" And he said, "Nah, nobody like you would go in the Army." So I said, "Actually, I failed my physical." He said, "How'd you do it?" I said, "I didn't know I was doing it."
I thought I was healthy.I was a newspaper reporter.I went for my physical, and I flunked.And I was the most shocked guy in the world.And he said, "Oh, I had a bunion." I said, "You did?Where?" He said, "I forget." So that's true; he actually had forgotten.And then he laughed, a little cackle.
So I said, "So you didn't want to go and serve your country?" And he went into a torrent about what kind of a guy would have wanted to do that?He said, "Would you have gone?" I said, "Yeah." I said, "I wouldn't be happy about it.I wasn't in favor of the war.I almost got kicked out of prep school for writing an editorial that said we should declare we were the winners and leave." I said, "But the fact is, if I got called, I was going to go." And he looked at me like I was crazy."I thought you were a smart guy." I said, "I am."
And then he asked me what my IQ was.Now, I must tell you, I have no idea what my IQ was.I don't know if anybody knows their IQ.I know I have a sister who had straight 800 college boards and is a card counter and is a genius TV director.And so I tried to figure out what hers was, and I said, "180." I made up a number.And he said, "That's pretty good; mine's 192." Well, I found out later, if your IQ is 192, your brain is going to fry.
But that's Donald.That encapsulates, if you will, Donald Trump.It's always got to be better.But he also wants to say, “Yeah, you're pretty good, too.You and I are—” That way, he forges a friendship, a relationship, which is going to become transactional.It's always transactional.It never stops.
That's the part that's a little bit harder to see now, the guy who's in the auditorium and talking about the press as the “enemy of the people.” But he can be magnetic in a smaller situation.There's something about him that–
Only smaller situations that I saw, although I will tell you, we used to go to Atlantic City, to the casinos, take writers and stuff like that.We would always go into the poker room at the Taj Mahal, and in the poker room at the Taj Mahal, it looked like a biker gang had taken over this place.And Trump would walk in, and they would be, "Trump, Trump, there's Trump!" And Trump loved it.He would just get filled up with it.And we would linger in the poker room, which was usually at the end of a very long day.And then we'd go out, we'd leave, and he'd turn to me and say, "Can you believe those are my customers?" I'd say, "Stop saying that.Someday you're going to say it at the wrong time." But that's Donald.
I have a feeling he leaves some of those rallies and says, "Can you believe those people are some of my voters?," and feels that way.Maybe by now he doesn't feel that way, but I bet that he does.
But he can turn on that charm.
Yeah, but he likes that.You know, he—I liken the poker room to the rallies, because the rallies, these are people that share his grievance; they share his—it's kind of like going to the Johnny Carson show when you were a kid.Everybody—Johnny Carson's your guy.Why do people go to sporting events and cheer for the home team?It was the same thing at those, a lot of those rallies at least.He never broadens his base because it's the same people with the same grievance and the same—but they believe in him, and they believe in him because he says, "I'm for you." And if you don't know him well, you believe that; you believe he cares.
As you get to know him, you realize it's all transactional.Well, they don't know him.They know the guy who's saying, "I hate those people coming over the border because they're rapists, and they're killers, and they're going to give you fentanyl, and they're going to cart your parents away, and they're going to put them into slavery." And they believe that.Why?Because nobody's told them it's not the case.Nobody's made the case against the Trump anti-border rhetoric, if you will, which I think is a great weakness in the country.
But Donald is built on hate.… Go back to Charlottesville.If anybody didn't understand it—that's when I left the Republican—I used to be the executive director of the Republican Party.I said that Charlottesville, everybody—nobody told—nobody spoke up.He says, "There are good people on both sides." There were Nazis on one side carrying torches and saying, "Jews will not replace us," and then there were people on the other side.Well, you should be able to make that choice.And if he couldn't make that choice, then he's not a good person.And he can't make that choice.
Trump Rails Against the Elites
… So some people have pointed to this, because as a political candidate, he rails against sort of the elites, but he is a wealthy–
He rails against the elites because they didn't embrace him.He wanted to be an elite.He wanted to be part of that crowd in New York.He wanted to be part of the in crowd.He worked very hard to do that, and they didn't embrace him.
A good friend of mine who is a major developer in New York and who was the chairman of the New York Public Library, which is one of the positions that—a leadership position in the city, and all of a sudden, he said, "You know, Donald Trump never looked at me twice until I became chairman of New York Public Library.Then he wanted to get together." I said, "Why?He's never read a book." He said, "Well, you're a friend of his.You represent him." I said, "Well, you're a friend of mine.I represent you, too." And he laughed.He says, "Well, I have no interest in talking to Donald Trump unless you want me to." I said, "Only if there's a reason."
But that's how people reacted to Donald.Donald is a—Donald doesn't even make a show of being interested in what anybody else is doing except himself.And in New York, that doesn't work.That's a big part of it.You have to at least make a game of it, if you will.
And he perceived that.He knew that he wasn't getting accepted in those circles.
Yeah. Yes, you could feel it; you could sense it.He never—Donald always says, you know, "I was at all of the—I go out to all these parties." He wasn't at parties at night; he was home watching TV.But if you looked at the Sunday <i>New York Times</i> social pages—which used to be a big thing; they don't exist anymore—and it would be the events, you don't see Donald in them.Now, you'd see Robert Trump and his wife because his wife was very social, Blaine, his former wife.But you didn't see Donald.And I would even say, "You know, I saw Blaine and Robert with the such-and-such." "Oh, I don't do that.They waste their time.They waste their money." Well, that's because he couldn't be embraced by those people, because to be part of that, you have to be willing to give.You have to write a check.
… One of the reasons I think he left New York was they just don't like him here.They never did.When I was representing him, they didn't like him.The only people that liked him were the people he was leaking to at Page Six of the Post, probably.But other than that, he did not have friends.And he had built-in, not enemies as much as doubters.It was very, very difficult to have Donald taken seriously or Donald's companies taken seriously.If Donald was saying, "We're doing XYZ," they'd say, "No, no, you've got to look behind that; can't trust that." Most people, when you say you're doing something, they take it at face value.Not with Donald.
Trump Courts Celebrity
He's famous for caring about his publicity, for getting all of the clips of him in the papers, for reading them carefully.Presumably he did that with you.
Oh, and then he sends them out.He circles—he has the black marker.Then he mailed—now I guess he probably finally grew to the fax machine, but he used to mail a stack of them out to people as if we hadn't seen them.
What is it that he is doing?If the celebrity is not to earn money, what is it that the celebrity is feeding?What is it about Donald Trump that cares how many times he's mentioned?
Well, part of it is his own ego and narcissism, obviously.The other thing is, he sees it—if he says that, "Princess Diana of Wales, I'd like to take her out," he thinks that she'll read that someplace and go out with him.Then, of course, it used to mature to "I know that Princess Diana of Wales wants to go out with me." He kind of moved that.
He would say he went out with people that really were upset by it, but he also knew they couldn't deny it because you cannot deny a negative.And so they would just be silent, but rage in silence.And he would laugh.“Prove a negative.”
He knows how to manipulate the press as well as anybody.There is nobody that I've ever met who can stay on message better than Donald.You can't get him off his message when you're when he's—now, when the message is a positive message, it's terrific.And I think you may have seen this, since he got into public life, that he can stay on message and not get off of it.He has great message discipline, I guess we would call it.And I was surprised he was that good with certain writers when we took the company public.And we're talking about real reporters now, not gossip columnists.And he could be pretty good.
It's when he started to say, "OK, I can take it one step further now and try to make it bigger than it was, better than it was.I'm tired of people saying I'm worth $500 million.I want it to be $5 billion." "Well, you're not worth $5 billion." "Yes, I am." And he would say it over and over again, and people would believe him.Who cares, actually?He's the only person in the Forbes 500 who wanted to get the number up.They used to laugh at me and say, "Alan, how come you keep calling us for clients that want the number to go down, and you’ve got one client who wants the number to go up?" And I'd say, "They all want an accurate number." And then they'd laugh and say, "Yeah, right."
But Donald, he marches to the tune of his own drummer, and I think it worked for him for a while.It doesn't work when you're in public life.It doesn't work when you're the president of the United States.It doesn't work when everything you say is going to be taken seriously.It doesn't work when the leader of the free world says things like, “We should do away with NATO.” It's not exactly the same as saying, “We should do away with the poker room at one of the casinos.” It's different, but Donald saw it at the same level of importance, I believe.
… And the worst thing you could say about him, presumably, was that he wasn't the person who he said he was; he didn't have the valuation that—
Well, you know something?Nobody brags about women that much that really has that many women, and nobody who has to brag about their wealth is that wealthy.If you're going to say anything to embellish, whether it's “We're the biggest network in the world,” and if you can't back that up instantaneously with ratings or whatever it might be, well, then, you're just embellishing.And in Donald's case, everything is embellished.There's nothing that is not embellished.
When Mercedes came out with a new model limousine, he had the best limousine.And I said, "Yeah, you blew $75,000 buying it probably." He had a Lamborghini at Mar-a-Lago.We were out driving in it, and he said, "What do you think of this car?" I said, "We're the two fattest guys to ever be in a Lamborghini." And I said, "Why did you buy this?" He said, “Oh, I didn't buy it.I was in their factory in Italy,and I said, 'You know the way to sell Lamborghinis?' And the guy, the president of the company,said, 'How?'" He said, "To give me a new one every year; that's how you sell Lamborghinis."
Now, I have no idea if he was getting a new one every year, but I do know he had one that year, and I was in it.
Ivana Trump
… Did you see him and Ivana together?
Yes.
What were they like as a couple?
I saw them together before I represented them.It was social.They seemed to be a good couple … at events or whatever it was.I kind of liked her, frankly.She got along very well with the rest of his family.When they had this big public breakup, and it was tabloid fodder, which I thought, this is not a businessman, … the family was siding more with Ivana than they were with Marla.
I may be one of the few people I know that have actually had dinner with all three of his wives.And they're all different, frankly, and they all have their plusses in their own way.
Some people say he was never going to make the mistake again, the mistake being somebody who's got a personality that could compete with him, that has ambition, and that's almost on par with Donald Trump's ambition.Do you see that when you look at the–
You know, it's funny.Donald always takes his women and blows them out of proportion.Ivana was on the Czech ski team, Czechoslovakia ski team, Olympic ski team.She somehow was affiliated, but she wasn't on the ski team.But she had to be on the ski team.And then, when somebody tries to live up to the billing that he provided, he gets upset.He says, "She's a great businesswoman.I'm putting her in charge of one of my casinos or the Plaza Hotel," or whatever it is.And then he gets upset when she declares that she's being a success.So he has to say, "She's doing a terrible job," and he has to undercut.
He can't share the spotlight, even with his wife.I never understood it.I don't think anybody understood it.And it makes people around them very uncomfortable.I think he likes to publicly undermine people, humiliate them.It's part of his makeup, which is not a nice thing, obviously.And I would say that whenever you get the Trump embrace, eventually it's only a matter of time before you get the bullet to the head, so to speak.See Michael Cohen, the ultimate guy.
But there are plenty, plenty of others.When Donald talks about loyalty—"I was very loyal to my wives"—well, they didn't think so.He expects people to be loyal to him, but he's not loyal to anybody.If you say, "Donald, I was loyal to you, and it cost me this, this and this," he wouldn't care.He'd say, "What are you?You're a sucker.Why would you do that?I was loyal to you." He doesn't—then he thinks you're a loser.
With Donald, there can only be one winner.He doesn't want to share that with anybody.…
Trump in Atlantic City
Leading into Atlantic City, how did he get into so much trouble in the late '80s before you join him?There's the airline; there's casinos; there's–
Well, he thought it was never going to end.And there were a lot of people in the '80s that thought it would never end.I think if you go back and look, up until about 1989, money was cheap; debt was cheap; it was easy to get.We had a lot of people come to us who had wanted to retain us and give us a piece of the action.Never did it, which was very good for us.
And Donald found that these people were willing to give him money to buy airlines, to buy the Plaza Hotel, to buy the casinos, which he was originally a partner in, and then he owned them.The idea was the airline was going to bring people to Atlantic City.Everybody forgets what—the airline wasn't supposed to be a shuttle to Boston and—pardon me—and Washington.It was supposed to be a means of bringing additional traffic to Atlantic City.On paper, that was a great idea.You don't buy the airline; you buy the routes.There are other ways of doing it.
But because of the cheap money, Donald was avarice [sic], as always.Thought it was never going to end.And then in October of 1989, the bottom fell out.And probably the second Black Tuesday in history, I remember sitting in a meeting in Gov.Kean's office in Trenton that day, and Kean asking me, "What do you think?" I said, "You’d better find out how the pension plans did today, because if I were a reporter, the first question I'd ask you was, what happened with the state pension plans?" And that's exactly what the first question was, and I thought to myself—and I got to all my clients and said, "This is what you're going to get asked." I bet you nobody thought to tell Donald, "You're going to get asked how this impacts your debt structure, how this impacts anything."
What Donald said was, I remember, maybe a couple days later, "I had gotten out of the markets.I didn't lose anything." That would be very dumb to have done that, but that was his response to what happened in 1989: "I was fine.Everything—boy, I saved millions.I dumped all my stock."
And you could find—there's a clip on it.That's how I knew it.I read it in the newspaper.And it's an example of the hubris and his lack of understanding of money.Donald really doesn't understand how money works.He knows it's fungible, but he doesn't know how to make it work.It's a zero-sum game for Donald.
And now he couldn't pay it back.But he was too big to fail and—or declared too big to fail.And the banks and the insurance companies and other lenders, they had to keep him alive.And you know, you give Donald that kind of leeway, he's going to take full advantage of it, which he did.He never paid attention to their limitations, some of which were still in place, many of which were still in place when I joined him.
I remember going into a meeting one day and somebody yelling and screaming, and I said, "How much do we owe you?" And the guy says, "$23 million," and I said, "And you think you get to speak at these meetings?" I mean, I was trying to put some levity in, and Donald said, "You should be at every one of these meetings from now on."
But then there was an ingenious plan, not from Donald, from others, to take out his debt by selling his interest in the casinos to the public, which was I guess basically his $975 million of personal debt.And so the first initial public offering, which was in 1995, did that and got him back on an even keel.So you say, well, Donald has now the second chance, the second chance we all would like to have after we've screwed something up, except he just went back and just did it again.He didn't know when to stop.
He lost the Plaza Hotel.I think it was 10 days after my daughter's wedding.I really was hoping they didn't pull the plug during the ceremony.And he—the airlines were gone.The yacht went; it got taken back.Donald, of course, always said no, he sold the yacht; he didn't want it; that was Ivana's; he didn't care for it, part of the myth.He didn't really want the—he actually sold the Plaza.Well, OK.
But there he was in a fairly good position.But he couldn't celebrate victory.He had to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, which he did in the late '90s/2000 when he got back into this.And then never—I guess after I left, there were, I guess, two bankruptcies of the casinos.
You can look at it the way you just did, which is a string of business failures.You can also say it's sort of remarkable that this guy is also in a way unstoppable despite the business failures.He's going to go on to be on reality TV; he's going to go on to be a president of the United States.Why doesn't something like that, which should be humiliating and should be–
Because nothing humiliates Donald Trump, because in his mind, he was right; he was successful.When the "Access Hollywood" tape—he walked out onto the street.People cheered him.He said, “It's over; it's good.” And he was right.People didn't care.I don't know why they didn't care, but they didn't care.I thought he was out; I thought it was the final stroke.I wasn't a genius that thought, oh, he'll benefit from this.But he saw that his people were still there; they still followed him.
Donald almost ran for president because he had nothing else to do, because the business was gone.And he was mad at Obama because Obama made jokes at him at the White House Correspondents' Club dinner, that's when he decided to run for president.Now, do I think he thought he was going to win?No.I think Donald thought he was going to become a much stronger candidate than people ever dreamed, and he was going to end up in the media business.I'm convinced that's what was on his mind to do.I think that—
But now you go back to the first debate.I remember I was watching it with my granddaughter, who was a journalism major at University of Southern California, and I was thrilled that I was watching it with her.And Wallace asked the first question, and he asked him about Donald's—Chris Wallace, pardon me—about his bankruptcies, and Donald said, "I never had a bankruptcy." And I told my granddaughter, I said, "He'll stick with this.You wait and see." And she said, "But he was bankrupt, wasn't he?" I says, "No, they were prepackaged bankruptcies.There's always a hook.Now watch."
And sure enough, Wallace, of course, comes back and says, "Well, yes, but, Donald, you were—Mr.Trump, you were bankrupt." "No, I wasn't.I was never bankrupt.I never had a bankruptcy." I said, “Now Wallace will either retreat and give up, or he'll say, ‘But what about the shareholders?What about the debt holders?What about the employees that were out of work?Doesn't that constitute a bankruptcy?’” But he didn't.He shrugged his shoulders and moved on to the next question.
And I turned to my granddaughter and my wife and said, “He's going to be the nominee.He just got past the one question that he couldn't get past.He just got past it.Now he'll kill Bush and everybody else because he has no record.He can go after their records, but he doesn't have a record.He'll be the nominee.” And I predicted he'd win, and he did.But that was because I thought that Hillary Clinton was the worst candidate in history.
But let's go back for one second, because that, what you just saw, about the bankruptcies, is exactly where you are as handling PR for him in the 1990s, where the business has collapsed and is continuing to collapse and he's selling an image of himself.
When I was there, we were coming back, so it was easy because we were saying, “Hey, we're—” I never said we weren't bankrupt.I, you know, I always had to avoid making sure that wasn't in the newspapers because then I'd get killed.But we never said the “B” word.I said, “But those issues are being corrected.Some of them are self-correcting; others are being corrected in other ways.And we're building back, and we're strong in this area this year, this year, most of which was accurate.”What wasn't accurate then was Donald's estimate of his personal wealth.But in terms of the companies' strength, it was pretty accurate.In terms of Donald's wealth, it wasn't accurate.
But did he admit that he had failed?
No.No.
… We were talking about Donald Trump as selling himself in that period and reality and how he does that.
People perceive Donald as the P.T.Barnum of his age.And I don't think that's the case at all because P.T.Barnum knew that he was out there fooling people.Donald doesn't think he's fooling people.Donald thinks it's all real.Donald thinks he is rich, because he convinces himself, and then he makes it happen, and he will be rich.He convinced people he could be president of the United States, and he became president of the United States.
So who's to disagree with the analysis that Donald just wills himself to be what he says he is?I think it was one of his staff people early on said, “Well, there are alternate facts,” and everybody laughed.And I remember telling my wife at the time, I said, “Sweetheart, there are alternate facts, and they’re Donald's facts, and then he doesn't care about anything else.They're his facts.” When he made his press secretary go out the first day of his administration and absolutely embarrass himself about the size of the crowd—and I know Spicer.I said he just shouldn't be there; this is not for him—and that Donald would create a myth about the size.He did it at the CIA the next day because that's what Donald cares about.He would, I'm sure, have asked people who knew, was it bigger than Nixon's?Was it bigger than Reagan's?Well, I was at Reagan's and Nixon's, and Reagan's was a hell of a lot bigger.Nixon's was bigger, but then again, we had a lot of antiwar demonstrators to build the crowd up.
Donald's was terrible.The next day there was a women's march that outdrew him.And Donald couldn't accept that.To him, that was the most important part, not winning the presidency, not getting his administration underway, not getting the country behind him.He was selling a number.That's what's important to him.
But the reason he could do it, and the reason you say he's a business failure but he sells himself as a business success, the reason it succeeds, you think, is that he commits to it, that he believes it?What's the trick for his unstoppability?
In this case?<i>The Apprentice.</i><i>The Apprentice</i> is a fantasy, and it came along in the early 2000s when Donald was not doing all that well.The casinos were gone, going or gone, and he gets hooked up with this TV show, and this TV show paid him a lot of money, but more importantly, people believe TV; what they see on TV is real.And it showed him landing in the helicopter, showed the plane.It showed him going into—you don't see much of Donald.He goes into boardrooms.That boardroom didn't even exist.That was a set.
His very major staff people, one … handled the front desk at a golf course, and one was a lawyer who … Donald owed money to, and his kids, who were not geniuses.But on a script, sure, everybody's a genius.And people looked and said, “Wow, what a businessman.What a great manager,” and “I want to be like him.”
And he took that into middle America, where people have always believed TV shows, frankly, I think—you know, <i>Leave it to Beaver</i>, going back to my youth.And they saw Donald, and they saw him as something that was a bright fixture in an otherwise kind of bleak outlook back in the 2000s, in the wake of 9/11 and a down economy in 2008, '07 and '08.And there's Donald.It's all a fantasy.It was all fiction, but people think it's real.
So that doesn't get enough credit, I don't believe, for why people believe that Donald was the real thing, the real deal.
Trump’s Interest in Politics
… He had started in I think '87, he went up to New Hampshire, and he had talked at various points about politics and about the presidency.Did you have an understanding of his interest in politics?
Yeah, I mean, an understanding in terms of—I think when he went up there, he didn't—he was invited up there.He was asked to give a Lincoln Day address, I believe.And he said, “Yeah, I'll go up.” Roger Stone may have had a lot to do with that.And Roger was the person he would talk to politics about.He would mention it to me; from time to time we would talk politics.I never encouraged him because I was afraid if I encouraged him, he'd do it.And I knew if he did it, he did it because he liked to make speeches; he wanted to get in the spotlight.This would be a great opportunity to look good, not to do it because I could run the city or the state or the country, because he couldn't.I mean, he couldn't manage a chauffeur; how's he going to manage the country?
But I think he just saw that as a platform, as another stage, a stage to be on.And he may have ability—he just has never demonstrated it; he's never shown it—to make a contribution, to do a good job.But he can never get past his focus on himself rather than the country, the world, or, for that matter, his company.It was always, “How do I get the company to pay for my plane?How do we sell my name better?”
He loved the fact that people would put his name on buildings and he'd get paid for it.And I said, “Well, yeah, we don't go into debt anymore.” There were a bunch of us who thought of that.I mean, it wasn't one person.But he saw it not “This is a great way to make a building”; he saw it as a way to get his name on buildings.
It's the narcissism.There were the businesspeople in the room, and then there are the people who feed into Donald's ego in the room, and then there's Donald.
… So we were talking about politics, and it was fascinating, because you said that it was the stage; you think that that was the attraction of politics?
Yeah.TV.The cameras.The adulation.The people, women looking at you adoringly.All of those things.And frankly, politics is all of those things and can be.Most people get rid of that quickly.I don't think Donald would because that's what Donald is.He loved—it's like the celebrities who came to Mar-a-Lago all the time.He'd invite them, and they'd go just to—he'd think that it was for him.And he would see the glamour, and he liked that glamour.
He would ask me what it was like to be in certain campaigns and stuff like that, and I said, "Donald, if I really liked it that much, I'd still be doing it." And he'd say, "Well, yeah, but why don't you do it?" I said, "Because it's an awful business.It's terrible.It's not for you." And he would say, “Oh,” and he would drop it; he would kind of drop it.
But if you look back at 1989, I think it was, he wrote a thing, a foreign policy ad in <i>The New York Times</i>, which his brother-in-law John Barry laughed and said, "Hey, we're the only casino operator with a foreign policy." He just laughed at him.
Then there was the Central Park Five.And Donald, actually people forget, he reflected Queens, and he reflected the mood in New York at that time, which had gone very racist and ugly.And he was very wrong.And it took quite some time, but Donald never apologized for that, and he never acknowledged, because his feeling, I think, always was: Well, they were in that park doing something bad, and so they should be—
I remember saying to him once, just in passing—I think we're playing golf—that within 25 years, America would be a minority country, and he just looked at me and said, "It'll never happen.This isn't going to be South Africa." I said, "Well, you don't have to be nervous about it, Donald.It's not for 25 years.You still have time." But he found that to be a very scary thought, I think, or a thought that it could never happen here.
And I always wonder if that's part of his border policy that comes from not wanting to see America be a minority country.Let's look at this way: When he talks about why don't we get more immigrants from Norway or Sweden or Switzerland, and he gives a racial epithet with that, that tells you all you need to know.He's not against immigration; he's against immigration of minorities.And frankly, you know, immigration, back in the '30s and '20s, people like his father, my grandparents from Russia, the Jewish immigration, Italian immigration, Irish immigration, those people that came in, they ran into their own problems.But that wasn't a racial problem; it was an ethnic problem possibly.
Now that immigration is coming from the South, and Donald, who, he claims to be able to solve every problem, well, the way you solve that problem is to say, “How do we take advantage of that immigration?” Because America has always been built on immigration.But instead, Donald looks at it and says, “People love to hate.And so I'm going to build hatred for that.I'm going to build a negative on that.”
And he comes down the escalator with an immigrant wife and says, “These people are rapists.” Now, I think he gets a lot of that from Roger Stone, not to point my finger at Roger.I've known Roger a long time.And Roger would look at and say, “That's a way to win; we should do that.” Roger also, long before Donald understood it, Roger understood that the middle of the country hates the East Coast and the West Coast.It's the elites versus the grievance.…
Trump on September 11
Let me ask you about Sept.11 and your phone call with Donald Trump.2
2
I was supposed to be on the air at Channel 9 that day because it was primary day in New York, and I was going to do a primary analysis on the 10:00 news, and my guess is that they called me because my name was on the sked for that day.And the news director called—God, I think as soon as the first plane hit—and said, “Can you come over?” And I got there as the building—I was actually out of the meeting, and I got there as the second building was coming down and went right on the air, and we were on the air because we had a back-up antenna and we were a superstation; we were on cable.So we were for a while the only station I believe in the New York area on the air.
So it was Rolland Smith and myself, a third anchor, and we were doing basic coverage until I want to say early afternoon.The same stuff's rolling, and after a while, you're seeing the same people jumping out of windows, and it's really horrific.And the news director asked me, said in my earpiece, “Can I see you for a second?” So I got off the set.And he said, "You know celebrities.Can you get a celebrity for us?" I said, "What do you mean, a celebrity?" And I was a little upset about that, frankly.And he said, "No, I mean, a developer like Trump; you know Trump." And I said, "Sure, I can call Donald.What do you want to do?" He says, "We'd love to get him on the air." OK.I said, "He'd actually be a good choice." He wanted to buy at one time the World Trade Center.He understands real estate.People forget, Silverstein had just closed; they just bought the buildings.
So I called Donald on his private line, even though I was no longer representing him, but still talked occasionally.He said, "Alan, this is terrible." I said, "Donald, I'm at Channel 9.I want to put the news director on.He'd like to put you on the air," and I put him on the speaker, and he immediately went into performance mode: "I was sitting here in my office.Alan's been here many times.I was looking at the Empire State Building.You know I own that.I was looking past it, and I saw the planes hit the World Trade Center," which, by the way, you cannot see from his office.
And I said, “Donald, let's hold this for the air." And news director asked if he would mind coming on.I'm thinking, mind coming on?How are we going to ever get him off?And Donald said, "Yeah.When is the crew going to get here?" And I said, "There is no crew.This is all by telephone.There's no way to get crews moving around Manhattan today." And even Donald understood that one.I'm sure he was very disappointed.
And he said, "When are we going to do this?" And the news director said, "As soon as Alan can get back on the set." And Donald said, "Alan's going to be on the air with me, right?" He said yes.Donald didn't—he didn't trust people he didn't know.
And we went on.And it was going well.If you listen to the full tape, it was really—Donald understood the construction of the building.He said why the building collapsed, because of the outer construction.He talked about why the planes went in.I asked him the question, which actually became a big news item later, about did Larry [Silverstein] lay the insurance off?He only closed, you know—and did the people who took the insurance, were they able to lay it off in the secondary markets?And was it one attack or two attacks?I don't know if I said that to him on the air or off the air, but that was on my mind.
And he fielded every question and fielded it well.In fact, he said either on the air or off, he says, "Well, you know Larry.He wears belts and suspenders so his pants don't fall down in public.He got insured."
And then it was starting to slow down a little bit as interviews go, and I said, "Donald, you have a building down in that area.Did you sustain damage?" And he says, "Well, I just called my people down there"—“my people”—"called my people down there, and we're fine." And then he says, "I guess this means I have the tallest building in downtown New York now."
And on the set we just looked, you know, like, what do you say to that?And we just kind of—I haven't listened to the tape, I must admit, in many, many years.I think we said nothing.I just think we let it pass because there was no way for anybody to say anything logical.And I know that if I said anything, "Well, really, that's not really the case," he'd make a case for that he had the biggest building in that downtown New York, which he, by the way, doesn't.There were taller buildings.
That, I think, sums up Donald Trump.The worst disaster in the history of New York City probably, the first time New York—the first time the United States has been attacked, the homeland, since the War of 1812, and Donald is marketing his building: Mine's bigger; mine's better.
And I told Rolland Smith afterwards when we were listening to a tape or something, I said, “Rolland, it's just Donald.” And Rolland just shook his head, and he said, "I'm embarrassed, you know." I said, "So am I."
Trump’s Rise on the National Stage
As you watch his rise, you've talked about how important The Apprentice was.As you watch him become somebody who—he was already a celebrity by the time you knew him, but it's a new level of celebrity as the reality TV star.
Well, when I first knew him, he was on the rise as a celebrity, a man about town.He was opening buildings.He was building buildings.He was all over the place.And people wanted to be associated with him—not the people he wanted to have associated, but a lot of people did.And then there was some pushback in terms of the construction of Trump Tower, about illegal labor and immigrant labor and such, which kind of tarnished his reputation, but he didn't back down from it.3He attacked right back.
And I remember thinking, that's probably the way to do it.I don't think I would have done it in the first place, but you’ve got to be honest and talk about what you did for these people, whatever.
And then came 1989 and the fallout from that, which wasn't just Trump.It was everybody, the world, but he more than most, because people were glad to see him suffer.They were happy to see him get hit.When he said, "Oh, I sold all my stock; everybody else is a loser who didn't sell theirs," they hated him more.And then that hubris of his was still there.He never was apologetic; he never backed down.…
Are you surprised as he enters into one of the most controversial conspiracy theories, which is the birtherism of Barack Obama?It's a little odd to understand.He's a reality TV star at that time, and he starts questioning Obama's birth certificate.
I thought it was unhinged.I thought it was crazy.I thought it was awful.I thought he was embarrassing himself.I think I missed on that one.I thought it was clear that there was nobody around him who could influence his judgment.My first thought was that Roger Stone would say this is the way to do it.I thought the president of the United States is never going to show his birth certificate.I could just imagine Nixon showing his birth certificate.
I thought that it was his way of saying, "That's a Black man.We don't want a Black man." … I thought it was awful what happened to Barack Obama on many levels, but probably the worst was Trump declaring that he was illegal.Think about it.He talks about illegals now, the illegals coming over the border.Obama was illegal.And then he had all of the investigators."We have investigators right now in Hawaii and here and here looking." Remember those comments?You could probably dig them up.He was never pressed by the media on that, and I've always felt that it was the media that should have done a much better job of saying, “OK, can we talk to some of those investigators you have?Can we get some of the evidence that they're pulling up?Can we know where they're going?”
There were no investigators; there was no evidence; there was no nothing.…
What is Trump Selling?
I guess the thing that keeps coming back in my mind in this conversation, which is, who is he selling?When he goes up and he says, “I didn't lose the election,” when he goes up and he says, “I never had a bankruptcy,” is he selling himself—
He's selling himself, yeah, in large measure.
—or the people?Who is he selling when he refuses—
I actually said to him once when he was lying, I said, “Donald, are you trying try to convince me?You pay me; you don't have to convince me." I said, "You're trying to convince yourself." "Oh, no, I'm not." I think there was a moment where I knew he understood that.… But everybody knew in the organization that we had to be pristine, that because of Donald's history and reputation, that there were people who were going to be looking to see if we were embellishing our projections or our numbers or anything to do with the, especially a casino company.And Donald couldn't contain himself.He was always embellishing, always enlarging whatever it was.…
As we get to the end, but it could be any of these moments, what happens to him if he accepts the bankruptcy or his aides after the election are saying, “You did really well.You can sell your first term.Just admit that you lost, and get ready for four years down the road,” what happens to Donald Trump if he were to admit that?Why can't he admit failure?
I think if he didn't have to—if it wasn't built on lies where you have to keep lying all the way around, and I think that's what's in Donald's mindset, he might have been able to focus on his presidency.He might have been able to accept that [former Secretary of Defense James] Mattis and others were giving him good advice.But Donald always had to be better than they were, smarter than they were, smarter than "my generals." He could never take disagreement.
One of the things that I noticed that people fail to see, most of the people who disagreed with Donald did so in private, and that's the way businesspeople are.I never disagreed with him in public.Not that I was Gen.Mattis, but that's the way you are.But he took it that they had disagreed with him in public in a way, and so he didn't trust them anymore.
You saw what he did to Barr.Barr bent over backwards to be his lapdog, and then when Barr said, "Hey, look, you didn't win the election," all of a sudden he's the worst attorney general in history, he's terrible, because that's Donald.You only get one shot with Donald, … because he believes everything he said.
What if he had told the truth about the bankruptcies?Well, he couldn't because he never had.What if he had ever told the truth?He never has.He has always given his truth.And so it's very, very difficult to suggest a personality change with somebody who has such a strong personality.It's such a chiseled, if you will, personality.It's so predictable.
So I don't know that that can be answered.
Is it an insecurity?Is it the 4-year-old that's trying to convince his dad that he's a winner? What is it?
I think that’s part of that.I think insecurity is probably a big part of it, being called a loser.It's like he was never bankrupt.Never the “B” word.No “B” word.Never bankrupt.“I didn't lose.I won the election.Everybody knows that.Everybody knows I won.You all know I won.You know, right?You know?Biden, you know I won.You know you're not the legitimate president.” You'll never hear him say that he was not—that he lost.Never.He was never bankrupt.He never lost.
Donald, he may be a charlatan, he may be a liar, but he's gone a long way with it.And I think what that tells you more about the country than it does about Donald, that there is a big part of this country, a big part of this country that is willing to accept a totalitarian who says, "I'm going to—on day one I'm going to be a dictator," and there are a lot of people who know he's not kidding; who brings Orbán down to Mar-a-Lago and says, "This is my kind of guy," and people say, “Yeah, that's our kind of guy.” They don't know where that goes.
We should give up on Ukraine.He wants to give up.You know why he hates Ukraine?Well, first, he likes—he wants to do a deal with Putin.[What] Zelenskyy did wasn't strong enough when he extorted him.And Zelenskyy said, "I didn't take it as extortion," but it wasn't strong enough.… He doesn't understand that what happens when Poland is next?Because Donald can't foresee that.Donald can't see the next steps.Donald only sees what's in his image. …
He doesn't have the basic understanding of history because he doesn't read.He doesn't know about the Holocaust because he doesn't read.He doesn't know about NATO and what its role has been since the end of World War II because he doesn't read.He doesn't know about the Berlin Airlift.He doesn't know any of those things.He doesn't read.
And I think if you look at the memoirs of people who served in his government, that's one of the things that they say.They were shocked at how little he understood about history because he doesn't read.To have a president that doesn't read, and can't read, is mind-boggling to me.
… To set aside the general election, though, that he has brought—we talked about he's convincing himself of his own reality and his own, you know, he didn't lose the election, but he has brought along with him now most of the people who would call themselves Republicans; he's brought along a lot of Americans who believe him.Is that a remarkable thing to you?
It's absolutely remarkable, but I think many of those people are not rank-and-file Republicans as much as they are Republicans who don't want to take the chance on crossing him, because if he endorses an opponent in a primary, he has enough strength to win a primary, but he doesn't have enough strength to win a general election.So if a [South Carolina Rep.] Nancy Mace, as an example, who just did a total flip-flop, being totally against Trump, then being totally for Trump—why?She doesn't want to have to run against a Trump-endorsed opponent in a primary.I think that's a big part of it.
I think you see a lot of people in Congress who truly believe in the Trump MAGA way of life.That doesn't mean that the rank-and-file all over the country does.I think that when Joe Biden stared at the Supreme Court justices who were present and talked about the power of women, I thought that was an incredible moment, and by the way, a very factual, accurate moment.
I can tell you, I know a lot of women who will do—their position is, I vote against Republicans now; I will vote against all Republicans.Some of them used to be Republican officeholders.
So it's a dynamic that's taking shape, and I don't know where it ends.If the Supreme Court does anything that makes people believe they were in Trump's pocket, if the judge in Florida does anything to believe in Trump's pocket, that only solidifies that this is a fix.He keeps saying it's rigged because he's rigging it, and that's bad for the country, very bad for the country.
… And is that why you decided to talk about your experience with Donald Trump?
I spoke about my experience with Donald Trump because a producer called me when I was in my wife's room when she was dying, and she asked me who's on the phone, and I told her it was a producer for the History Channel.And she said, "You have to go on." And she knew I had turned down a lot of interview requests because I just didn't feel comfortable talking about a client, former client.And she said, "You have to do it for me." She said, "You know, you and others saved him in the '90s and let him come back to what it is today." And then she said, "And I'd like to see you on television one more time."
So I told the producer, I said, "Well, OK.You've got to come out here.I'm not leaving the house.And you’d better do it quickly, because then all bets are off." That was on, I believe, the 26th of October.I believe the interview was the 28th, and my wife passed on Nov.6.So it was in a very compressed timeframe.In fact, much of the crew from the production crew came to her funeral.They actually brought a copy of a tape of some of the outtakes.They said, “We'd planned on giving this to your wife.”
Now, once you do it once, it's easier to do it a second, third or fourth time.In this case, I'm not certain that I can do all that much, that my voice adds that much to the debate.But I think it's important enough for people to know from people who do know Trump that there are some people who are not afraid of Donald Trump, frankly, and should tell people what Donald Trump is really like and what he's capable of and what he's incapable of.
And so I don't get anything for doing this except knowing that what I'm doing I wish a lot of other people were doing, and I can't criticize people for not doing it unless I step up and do it myself.And I'll do it on any platform that people want me to do it, and I wish others would as well.
Donald Trump is the most dangerous person on the planet.I think his niece said that.I don't think people listen to her.I know the basis from which she said that, having been there so long ago when that problem started.I know he's incoherent.I know he's not very smart.I know that he doesn't read; he doesn't understand.I have no idea why he wanted to keep all of those documents since I'm sure he never read them.He probably wanted to use them for something a bit more nefarious, and I would really worry what that was.
And I feel good about participating, if you will, in an exercise of truth, because the one thing that has been missing from the Donald Trump story throughout is truth.We make excuses for alternate facts.We make excuses for Trump being Trump.And it's time somebody stood up and said Trump being Trump is a bad thing, and alternate facts are a bad thing.…
Latest Interviews
Latest Interviews
Policies
Teacher Center
Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation
Koo and Patricia Yuen
FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH Educational Foundation. Web Site Copyright ©1995-2025 WGBH Educational Foundation. PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.
Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation; Park Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen. FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH Educational Foundation. Web Site Copyright ©1995-2025 WGBH Educational Foundation. PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.
