PREFACE TO THE 2016 EDITION: TRUE TRUMP

 

 

In mean-girl fashion, Donald Trump had decided we would never talk again. Five sessions into a scheduled seven interviews, the great dealmaker had an assistant break our deal. We would never speak again. The reason? I had spoken to someone he hated. Given his temperament, I wasn’t surprised. Don, as he insisted I call him, feels offended when people don’t serve him. And when he feels offended, he considers you dead. As he told me, “When somebody does something to me, they died. It’s over. There’s no coming back. That’s okay. There are billions of people in the world. You don’t need them.”

Months passed and then the caller ID screen on my ringing phone flashed “Trump Tower.” The call came from one of Trump’s lawyers—he employs many of them—named Michael Cohen. He wanted the manuscript for this book because he was certain it was filled with errors. He wanted to “help” me avoid publishing inaccuracies. We talked about how books are fact-checked and about the reader’s reliance on a writer’s independence. A subject who gets final review of a manuscript may as well be coauthor of the work, imposing his self-serving perspective and bias. In the case of Trump, who uses lawsuits like weapons, there was also the strong possibility of a courtroom battle over my words.

When Cohen realized he wasn’t going to get the text, he started asking questions. Does the book mention certain famous women? Does it say that he is a racist? As I refused to answer, Cohen’s voice grew huskier and more menacing until he sounded like the fictional mobster Tony Soprano, albeit with a law degree. Finally, Cohen seemed to recognize he was stymied and broke character.

“You’re not really giving me anything,” he said with an exasperated tone.

“Michael, I’m not supposed to,” I answered.

I think he chuckled.

After our jousting conversation, Cohen followed up with calls to the legal department at my publisher’s offices and at least one letter. Somewhere along the line, he announced, “You just bought yourself a fucking lawsuit.” This was a classic Trump move. Throughout his career, he had made so many threats to sue journalists that reporters felt neglected if they were left out. In our very first meeting, amid the small talk and banter, Trump had mused about the prospect of suing me.

No lawsuit came, which also was not a surprise. A few weeks later, on a sunny day in June 2015, Cohen’s boss called the press to the lobby of Trump Tower. At the appointed hour, he rode down an escalator, many steps behind his wife, Melania, to announce that he was running for president. This was why Cohen had called, I suspected. He was worried about how Trump would be portrayed and thought he would employ a little defensive menace.

Menace has long been a defining characteristic of the Trump modus operandi. This includes employing very large armed men who pose conspicuously—they all but flex their muscles and flash their weapons—in the waiting room of his office and accompany him when he leaves. This practice, which Trump has used for decades, may be unique to him. It is certainly not common among powerful executives. However, Trump often points out the members of his security squad and brags about their training as former police officers and detectives. The effect, of course, is to make others feel physically vulnerable, if not threatened.

Threat was often in the air as Trump conducted perhaps the most bizarre presidential campaign that America has ever seen. He fulminated against undocumented immigrants, whom he threatened to deport by the millions, and growled about Muslims, whom he would bar from entering the country. Little was out of bounds for candidate Trump, who retweeted a racist canard about murder in America. According to the faked “data” credited to a nonexistent “Crime Statistic Bureau,” black assailants were responsible for 81 percent of murders of white Americans. (In fact, FBI statistics for 2014 show 82 percent of whites were killed by whites.) Trump’s transmission of the race-baiting lie came days after his supporters kicked and punched a black protester who interrupted his stump speech in Birmingham, Alabama. Trump shouted (apparently to anyone and everyone), “Get him the hell out of here, will you, please? Get him out of here. Throw him out!” A Trump campaign spokesperson told CNN that the Trump campaign “does not condone his behavior,” but Trump himself put it differently: “Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.” At another rally, he used his microphone to narrate the removal of a lone dissenter. “The guards are being very gentle with him,” he said. “I’d like to punch him in the face, I’ll tell you that.”

Delivered without notes, or any apparent preparation, Trump’s campaign speeches were devoid of policy details and resembled comedy shows offered to eager fans who weren’t asked to pay for tickets. He lacerated other politicians, demonized journalists, and crowed about polls that showed him outpacing his rivals. All of this was done in the staccato style of an insult comic. Consider his performance before a crowd gathered on January 20, 2016, in South Carolina, as reported by The Kansas City Star:

I look at this guy Jeb Bush. He spent $59 million on his campaign and he is down in the grave. He is nowhere. No, no. Think of it. It’s got to be much more than that. It was actually $59 million a while ago.

Every time I turn on an ad, I see an ad about Trump. I mean, it’s not that bad an ad either. It’s like—you know.

(Laughter)

If you’re going to do an ad, do an ad. But he’s a low-energy person. Let’s face it. We don’t need low-energy. We need lots of energy.

(Applause)

But he spent—think of it. Think of it. He spent $59 million. I spent nothing, right? Nothing.

(Applause)

Now, I’m going to be spending. You probably saw I’m going to spend—now, we’re going to start spending a lot of money because I don’t want to take any chances. You know, it’s—I love getting up—and for the last couple of months, I have been leading from practically the time I announced, right? And for the last—and leading a lot. I’m going to go over that because I go over polls. I love polls. I love polls.

A spectacle of distortion, disjointed speech, and hyper-emotional style, Trump’s campaign defied the usual kinds of political analysis. As he talked about his great wealth, his superior intelligence, and his innate ability to “win” at everything, he seemed more like a character in a Hollywood farce than a legitimate candidate. He used his rubbery face to communicate disgust, anger, rage, and self-satisfaction. And he used his body to illustrate points he wanted to emphasize. When discussing a reporter who happened to be disabled, he mocked him by imitating the man’s movements. To punctuate his charge that another candidate, Marco Rubio, sweated during a debate, he splashed water around and then pretended to gulp from a plastic bottle.

The approving laughter and cheers that greeted Trump’s water bottle performance was informed by the fact that Rubio, an actual United States senator, had started all the talk about bodily fluids. Overwhelmed in the campaign by Trump, who had already won three state primaries, Rubio co-opted his techniques in February 2016. He told an audience that during a break in a televised debate Trump had “asked for a full-length mirror … maybe to make sure his pants weren’t wet.” This is what the presidential campaign had come to: two grown men talking about who may have sweated profusely or who might have become incontinent. And then it got worse.

As Trump and his rivals courted voters in the Deep South, the most famous racist in U.S. politics said that for white Americans to oppose Trump was “treason to your heritage.” David Duke is a former national leader of the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group, which in various incarnations has terrified and terrorized blacks, Jews, Catholics, and others. In 2000, Duke’s name was mentioned by Trump himself as he ticked-off his reasons for leaving the Reform Party. (He called him “a bigot, a racist, a problem.”) However, in 2016, as primaries in the Deep South approached, Trump could not seem to recall who Duke was. He also said he didn’t understand the nature of the white supremacy movement. In a live interview with Jake Tapper of the CNN television network, he said, “I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists … so I don’t know. I don’t know—did he endorse me, or what’s going on? Because I know nothing about David Duke; I know nothing about white supremacists.”

When Trump failed to simply reject the support of racist organizations, and insisted he didn’t know anything about a man he had once condemned as a bigot, many of his fellow Republicans recoiled. Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan of Wisconsin said, “If a person wants to be the nominee of the Republican Party, there can be no evasion and no games. They must reject any group or cause that is built on bigotry. This party does not prey on people’s prejudices.” In the heated controversy around the issue, Trump pointed to other instances where he had disavowed Duke.

The controversy prompted a frenzy of press reports, which did not cast Trump in a favorable light. Nevertheless, he continued to speak to big crowds, and on so-called Super Tuesday, when ballots were cast in eleven states, Trump won seven. Mainstream leaders of the Republican Party faced the prospect of following the most divisive candidate in decades into the November election, where they feared they would lose not just the race for the White House but also cede control of the United States Senate. In this nightmare vision of the future, the party itself could break apart and sink like a ship overwhelmed by a hurricane sea.

*   *   *

Trump’s campaign was a carefully plotted and successful effort to exploit the grievances and ire of frightened people who harbored deep suspicions about a political system that was dominated by those who donated huge sums to election campaigns.

The fears that Trump exploited included, among others:

• Fear of Islamist terrorists—Trump would temporarily bar Muslims from entering the United States and begin massive military actions in the Middle East.

• Fear of unemployment—He would deport 11 million undocumented Mexican immigrants, build a huge border wall, and force Mexico to pay for it.

• Fear of crime—Trump would seek to impose the death penalty more widely, which is not something a president can order.

• Fear of globalization—He would start trade wars with China and Mexico.

Trump exploited the anger and suspicions people felt by:

• Mocking former prisoner of war and Senator John McCain’s military service.

• Declaring climate change a hoax.

• Spreading the lie that “thousands and thousands of people” in New Jersey cheered the collapse of the World Trade Center towers in the terror attacks of 9/11.

• Demonizing reporters as “absolute scum. They’re totally dishonest.”

The sum of Trump’s appeal could be found in the title of his swiftly assembled campaign manifesto, a book called Crippled America, and his slogan “Make America Great Again.” At his rallies, people wave placards that reference the Nixon-era “Silent Majority” and the phrase “take our country back” was a common refrain. The inference was that millions of Americans had felt powerless and even silenced by some foreign force that had taken over the country. However, with Trump they had found a voice. As Trump voter Patricia Aguilar of Everett, Massachusetts, told The New York Times, Trump was expressing what “people really feel” but “we’re all afraid to say it.”

Inspired by Trump’s rhetoric and flamboyant style, which distinguished him in a crowded field, people flocked to his speeches and rallies. Television producers gave him far more time on their broadcasts than other candidates. Whenever he appeared, ratings for programs soared so much that Trump began to complain about the revenue bonanza enjoyed by the networks. In the online world, groups of Trump supporters clustered by the thousands and passed around faked news items and endorsements. Posters used photo-editing software to fake pictures of Trump supporters. (One manufactured image showed a black man in a T-shirt decorated with a pro-Trump slogan.) Bloggers faked articles under the bylines of established writers at The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker. This lying was considered by many to be acceptable in the lawless space of the Internet. It was also consistent with Trump’s own social media posts, which often feature mockery, anger, and distortions. As one follower wrote on Reddit, with apparent admiration, “He’s shitposting, just like he does all day every day.”

What conventional politicians didn’t understand was that “shitposting” can bind believers together and inoculate them against the influence of facts supplied by outsiders. In these groups of Trump fans, no outside critic was granted a hearing, and internal dissent was punished with a torrent of abusive comments. Unaware of the power residing in this alternative universe, pollsters and power brokers underestimated Trump for many months. In June 2015, Mara Liasson of National Public Radio said, “I think this is Donald Trump’s biggest day. And he will be ignored from henceforth.” In November, the chief political writer for U.S. News & World Report predicted “Trump’s lead will fade,” and number-cruncher Nate Silver advised the press to stop “freaking out” because Trump’s base of support was less than 8 percent of the voters. As late as January 2016, the odds makers who bet on the presidential nominating process favored Marco Rubio.

The truth about Trump’s appeal began to dawn on the experts when he won the New Hampshire primary by almost twenty points. Next came victories in South Carolina and Nevada. On the first Tuesday in March, he won in seven out of eleven contests and Trump seemed on his way to the nomination. This reality, unthinkable to them months earlier, was so alarming to the party establishment that they began a mad scramble to find ways to avert a Trump nomination. Their concern was that despite the intensity of Trump’s core supporters, he would not be able to attract enough independents and Democrats to win against the likely nominee from the other party, Hillary Clinton.

GOP leaders were concerned because after the 2012 election, a formal “postmortem” study had determined that the party had alienated certain large groups—Latinos, blacks, women, Asians, and others—that held the key to a national candidate’s chances. As Trump pushed these voters further from the GOP, longtime leaders of the party, especially those who had been involved in nominee Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign for president, became alarmed. One, Kevin Madden, said that Trump should be considered “a litmus test for character” and that supporting him meant failing the test. Another, Stuart Stevens, urged people to vote for the Democrat Hillary Clinton because she would make a better president. One-time U.S. Senate candidate Meg Whitman called Trump “a dishonest demagogue.”

When Trump continued to win, the sober-minded members of the GOP establishment came together to try to stop him from becoming their party’s leader. An anyone-but-Trump coalition, led by Romney and others, formed to stop him either during the primary elections or, failing that, at the party convention where the rules governing the proceedings could be used to thwart him. “Dishonesty is Trump’s hallmark,” said Romney. (Trump responded with a joke remark about how when they met in 2012, Romney would have performed oral sex on him to get his endorsement.) William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, said he would work to help an alternative independent or third-party candidate seek the White House, and GOP Congressman Scott Rigell of Virginia declared, “Not only could I not vote for him, but I couldn’t sit and be silent as I watched him advance.” A similar sentiment came from sixty Republican foreign policy experts, many of them former diplomats and presidential advisors who denounced him as a threat to America’s standing in the world.

The foreign affairs experts who finally recognized the problem Trump posed to America’s global interests would have been informed by the TV news crews and correspondents who had, since the start of 2016, brought their worry about Trump to my home in suburban New York. Many, like Suh Yong Ha from the Korean Broadcasting System, had attended Trump rallies where he had pointed to reporters, called them “scum,” and his supporters responded with boos and catcalls. Others had witnessed Trump’s fans seizing protesters and forcefully ejecting them from events. In their conversations with me, three different reporters from Germany used the word “Nazi” as they described what they saw in Trump. Every single interviewer pressed me to explain what was going on and offer some insight into the man.

Is he a racist?

Is he mentally ill?

Is he evil?

Unlike Trump, I wouldn’t answer with simple declarations. That is his method. However, it is possible to study Trump and develop reasonable insights. I had put three years into the task of investigating his personal life, businesses, politics, and more. I had identified the influences and experiences that seem to explain his penchant for bullying, manipulation, deception, and megalomania.

Trump believes that much of what we are can be found in our genes and early childhood. He was born to a mother who was attention-seeking, obsessed with social status, and so money-conscious that she personally visited the basement laundries of Trump buildings to collect coins from the washers and driers. She was also sick during much of young Donald’s early life. His father was, by many accounts, extremely strict and demanding but also preening, manipulative, and deceptive. Two government investigations revealed that he consistently bent the rules to wring excess profits out of programs designed to house war veterans and middle-class Americans.

Fred Trump’s most creative business activity involved not the construction of his cookie-cutter housing but the development of a web of corporations to obscure what he was doing with his government-subsidized financing. When called to account, he owned up to his greedy and unseemly behavior and offered the immoral explanation that the system let him do it. There was nothing wrong with violating the spirit of taxpayer-supported housing programs so long as it was legal.

At home, Trump the elder demonstrated his methods and priorities as he conducted business late into the night. One of his telephone tricks involved lying about his identity—he called himself “Mr. Green”—in order to gain some advantage over the people he called. When he did interact with his offspring, he taught them to be ruthlessly competitive and aggressive. Donald was to be both a “killer” and a “king.” As befit his status, he was driven along his paper route in a big limousine. Not surprisingly, he became an argumentative, bullying, and physically aggressive little boy.

Donald attended a genteel private school where he was required to wear a little coat and tie every day. He was disruptive and unruly, and the school, called Kew-Forest, did not break him of these tendencies. Trump would not be moderated, either, by the spiritual lessons preached at the Marble Collegiate Church, which he sometimes attended with his family. Marble Collegiate was home to the famous Reverend Norman Vincent Peale, who taught that salesmanship was next to godliness and ambition was practically a form of worship. Peale almost never spoke of sin or moral obligations and offered anti-Catholicism in opposition to John F. Kennedy’s bid for the White House. His followers constituted what could be regarded as a cult devoted to the messages in his book, which was called The Power of Positive Thinking.

Encouraged to feel superior by so much of what he experienced outside of school, Donald Trump bullied his schoolmates and teachers. For eighth grade, he was packed off to distant New York Military Academy, where he was put in uniform and deposited in a spare little room. Gone were family and friends and the opulence of the Trump mansion. In its place was a system of hierarchy and authoritarian discipline. The adults and NYMA, many veterans of World War II, governed with physical and psychological brutality. As Donald told me, “They’d smack the hell out of you.”

In addition to confirming that bullying was the way of the world, NYMA reinforced for Trump the idea that competition and winning was everything. His old mentor at the school, “Maje” Theodore Dobias, would tell me that Trump had to be first at everything, including first in line at the chow hall. He also recalled that his father “was really tough on the kid. He was very German.”

At NYMA, the corps of cadets included sons of mafia figures and boys whose fathers served Latin American dictators, but not one black or Asian student. In Donald’s senior year, the ritual hazing at the school got so bad that a junior-level student was hospitalized after an upperclassman whipped him with a heavy chain. With the brutal culture of academy exposed to the outside world, three top officers at the school resigned.

Having thrived at NYMA, Donald Trump treated college as if were a trade school, heading home every weekend to apprentice in the family business. There he saw how his father manipulated politicians with donations and worked his connections to get ever-richer. While young men from poor and minority communities fought and died in Vietnam, he was able to avoid service because of a minor medical problem. (His heel spurs didn’t prevent him from playing sports, but somehow meant he couldn’t fight.)

In his life after college, Donald settled in Manhattan, where he prowled the precincts of greed, deception, and depravity. In his own telling, he watched orgies in the celebrity quarters at Studio 54 and witnessed, firsthand, the corruption of New York politics. (He would later note how Governor Hugh Carey would do “anything” for a campaign donation.) One of Trump’s earliest close associates was the mob lawyer and political hatchet man Roy Cohn, who was notorious for his racist and anti-Semitic (despite being Jewish himself) statements. Operating under Cohn’s tutelage, Trump soon demonstrated an ability for using the press to build a false image of success. With a little manipulation, he got the blessing of The New York Times, which presented him as handsome and brilliant, and he got attention from the city’s most important TV talk show. The press needed good stories, whether they were entirely accurate or not, and it didn’t hurt that Donald photographed well.

At every turn, whether he was looking for it or not, young Trump saw how those who were willing to violate old-fashioned notions of decency benefited. In his 1970s New York, newspaper columnists traded attention for certain favors, mobsters enjoyed a celebrity comparable to star athletes, and values like fidelity and sincerity were relics of the past. His world was a gilded gutter where he became convinced that human beings are essentially venal creatures. The more he expressed greed and self-regard, the more people seemed to like it. He had hired someone to write a book and then paraded himself as an author and it became a bestseller. He publicly betrayed his first wife and the resulting scandal subjected his children to ridicule and scorn. His companies went through four massive bankruptcies and he failed at any number of businesses. And, according to countless lawsuits, reports, and individual accounts, he and his organization have victimized thousands of investors, consumers, and bystanders.

And now, in 2016, Trump is a candidate for president who is devoid of ideals and committed to little beyond his will to power. Without a strong foundation of empathy and ethics, he exploits racial hatred, dabbles in misogyny, and tacitly encourages violence. As the election approaches, his view of humanity is being affirmed again and again. And the important questions that must be answered are not about Trump. What lurks in him is apparent. Less certain is what resides in us.