For their patience and love, I thank, first, my wife, Liz Schalet, and my children Maya, and Jonah, who fuel my sense of adventure and curiosity, and keep me laughing, and hoping.
My parents, Carol L. and Richard J. Bernstein, who taught me to love books and writing and the joy of learning new things every day.
My editor, Tom Mayer, who came to me months after Trump was elected to ask me to think about writing this book, and who told me “You know this world. You can do this.” And who then helped me to think this book through at every single step, in ways that made it much more sweeping and far better than it otherwise would have been.
My agent, Alia Hanna Habib, who unfailingly has my back, while also being as lovely as can be and as tough as nails, two qualities I especially prize.
All of the more than two hundred people who spoke to me for this book, who gave generously of their time, who answered questions, often despite personal risk.
Friends of mine, busy with their own work, who never failed to take the time to meet and discuss ideas and book-writing itself: Adam Davidson, Margaret Hempel, Masha Gessen, Ellen Lippmann, Matt Katz, Ilya Marritz, Ed Pilkington, Lisa B. Segal, Linda Villarosa, and Jacqueline Woodson, you helped me over many, many hurdles. I especially thank David Rohde, in so many ways the guardian angel of this book.
My colleagues at WNYC and ProPublica on the Trump, Inc. project who have dug with me and thought things through with me and whose collaboration has made us all better and more knowledgeable: along with my brilliant cohost Ilya Marritz, I am deeply indebted to Meg Cramer and Eric Umansky, Jesse Eisinger, Peter Elkind, Justin Elliot, Stephen Engelberg, Robin Fields, Charlie Herman, Anjali Kamat, Derek Kravitz, Ian MacDougal, Alex MacGillis, Bill Moss, Jake Pearson, Daniela Porat, Jim Schachter, Katherine Sullivan, Anjali Tsui, Nick Varchavar, Heather Vogell, Alice Wilder, Katie Zavakski, Emily Botein, Jared Paul, and Marilyn Thompson. And to Hannis Brown, whose music makes it all make sense.
I am blessed to have so many beloved and talented colleagues at WNYC, and I thank all of you for your amazing work. I especially thank my editors: Karen Frillmann, John Keefe, Nancy Solomon, Charlie Herman, David Lewis, and Jim Schachter, as well as WNYC’s extraordinary archivist, Andy Lanset and the talented data news journalist Jenny Ye. And the colleagues who inspired me from the moment I first sat in front of a WNYC microphone: Amy Eddings, Beth Fertig, Marianne McCune, Kaari Pitkin, Patricia Willens, Soterios Johnson, Richard Hake, Brian Lehrer, and Brooke Gladstone. And those I have had the privilege of editing, sometimes often, sometimes just once, I have learned so much from you: Kat Aaron, Bridget Bergin, Collin Campbell, Ailsa Chang, Lisa Chow, Alex Goldmark, Sarah Gonzalez, Jessica Gould, Kathleen Horan, Kate Hinds, Yasmeen Khan, Jim O’Grady, Fred Mogul, Elaine Rivera, Cindy Rodriguez, Anna Sale, Matthew Schuerman, Arun Venugopal, and Manoush Zamorodi.
I offer many, many thanks to the broader group of journalists who have helped us on the Trump, Inc. reporting project: Daniel Alarcon and the team at Radio Ambulante, Dan Alexander, Ailsa Chang, Susanne Craig, Adam Davidson, David Enrich, David Fahrenthold, Ronan Farrow, Michael Finnegan, Franklin Foer, Nick Fountain, Alex Goldmark, Esther Kaplan, John Kelly, David Kocieniewski, Anita Kumar, Caleb Melby, Michael Rothfield, Zoe Tillman, Jeffrey Toobin, and Brian Urstadt.
There were a host of journalists, writers, historians, and scholars who helped me think through what became this book, but I can’t overstate the assistance given to me by long-time New York Times real estate journalist Charles V. Bagli, who generously shared his time, his papers, and his ideas.
Thank you as well to Bill Bastone, Gwenda Blair, Nina Burleigh, Lisa Chase, Sarah Chayes, Kathleen Clarke, Joe Conason, Anthony Cormier, Joe Donohue, Jesse Drucker, Sarah Ellison, Zach Everson, Emily Jane Fox, Luke Harding, James Hughes, Dawn Garcia and the staff of the JSK Fellowship at Stanford, Mary Ann Giordano, Dan Golden, Terry Golway, Justine Gubar, Jason Leopold, Peter Kaplan, Lisa Kron, Tony Kushner, Joshua Margolin, Robert Maguire, Tom McGevern, Tom Moran, Tim Nostrand, Tim O’Brien, Azi Paybarah, Jeff Pillets, Michael Powell, Andrew Rice, Tom Robbins, William Rashbaum, Richard Rothstein, Dominic Rushe, Mark Schoofs, Tony Schwartz, Gabriel Sherman, Ted Sherman, Deborah Solomon, Zephyr Teachout, and Rebecca Traister.
I am grateful to Benjamin Wright and the entire staff of the Wayne Barrett Papers at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas, Austin; the staff of Holocaust Research Center at Kean University; the USC Shoah Foundation; the Hedi Steinberg Library at Yeshiva University; the New York University Furman Center; the Municipal Archives of the City of New York; and the Center for Responsive Politics.
I am deeply indebted to the journalists and researchers who helped me work on this book: to Decca Muldowney for unearthing New Jersey land records from their original microfilm, and to Alice Wilder for locating tape no one else could find. I especially want to thank Fergus McIntosh, sine qua non, whose natural investigative instincts, extraordinary journalism skills, and inexhaustible patience guided the checking of every fact in this book. Needless to say, any errors that remain are my own.
I would also like to thank Robert Caro and Jane Mayer for inspiring me to read every page of everything and run down every source I possibly could. Both were a constant yardstick against which to measure my own work.
And A. M. Homes, who said to me, some summers ago, why don’t you write a book? Before telling me: I mean it, thereby setting off a chain of events that led to the book in your hands.
And Wayne Barrett, the first biographer of Trump, who set the standard. He died on January 19, 2017, leaving much unfinished work for me to do. I miss you, Wayne.
Brooklyn, New York, Autumn 2019