Trump was keeping tabs on the response to the political trial balloon he’d been floating. On January 5, 2000, two-and-a-half months after telling Larry King he would explore a run, Trump descended—via elevator, not escalator—to a lectern in the Trump Tower atrium to announce the release of his policy book The America We Deserve.1
Trump: We’ve done three books, they’ve gone to number one, but they’ve been much different than this book. This is a little bit about what I think on the country, what could be done, what should be done, and we hope this also becomes a number-one bestseller.
A reporter asked if this presidential talk was promotional, not serious.
Trump: It’s something that has turned out to be very serious. If you look at the crowds, if you look at our internal poll numbers have been amazing, the ratings on television have been the highest of anyone by far.
Trump moved to a desk flanked by American flags to sign books for the public and answer a few more questions, including from New York Post reporter Gersh Kuntzman, who first wanted to know how Trump had gotten over his aversion to shaking hands.2
Trump: It’s not necessarily something I’m in love with, but it’s fine. I do it.
Kuntzman (minutes later): How do you think you’re going to appeal to Middle America?
Trump: I really think just as well. I supply lots of jobs, lots of work, lots of money for lots of families. I think it’s the same as here. I think the people that don’t like me are the rich people.
A reporter introduced herself from Pseudo, an “internet broadcast company” (which was famously ahead of its time, sending interactive video onto the Web when almost no one had broadband fast enough to use it).3 She asked if Trump had any thoughts on the internet and politics. He gave a generic answer that the future of the internet was unlimited.
Pseudo reporter: Do you think you’d like the opportunity maybe to talk to some of the people in America, maybe interact with them online?
Trump: Maybe someday.
He paused to sign a book and then continued the thought.
Trump: I still understand NBC, ABC, and CBS better. Isn’t that terrible?
The America We Deserve mapped out Trump’s most complete policy stances on trade and diplomatic policy, and even included a warning that America was at risk of a terrorist attack thanks to its unchecked “military adventures”—a year before 9/11 occurred. Trump wrote that he wouldn’t rule out a “surgical strike” if negotiations failed to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. He called China a “growing military threat abroad and an oppressive regime at home.” And he advocated restricting the flow of immigrants to the United States, writing, “Let’s be extremely careful not to admit more people than we can absorb. It comes down to this: We must take care of our own people first.”
The book made the point that “a Trump candidacy would do best in an economic downturn when American voters would likely turn to a can-do businessman prepared to make the tough decisions. No one can tell what the economy will be like in 2000, but it will impact my decision.”
Trump’s most biting observations were reserved for political opponents: Lowell Weicker (“one of Washington’s premier windbags”), Bill Bradley (“as phony as a twenty-dollar Rolex”), Jerry Nadler (“one of the most egregious hacks in contemporary politics”), and Buchanan (“he called Hitler ‘an individual of great courage’”). Ironically, in light of the 2016 election cycle, Trump in 2000 called Jeb Bush “exactly the kind of political leader this country needs now and will very much need in the future,” and praised Hillary Clinton as “definitely smart and resilient” and “very nice to my sons Donny and Eric.”
Gersh Kuntzman, New York Post reporter: The editors thought he might announce for president, so they were sending us to everything he was doing. And it always turned out to be a book signing. He loved moving books, that guy.
Dave Shiflett: The book helped the Trump brand. Here’s a different way to think of Donald, not only as a real estate guy and a celebrity but as a politician. It was a campaign book for a campaign that was very short-lived and a candidate who was not at all serious about doing this. This was just something they needed to have. For all I knew, Roger Stone had sketched stuff out. I don’t know if Trump would’ve thought about it that much. We’d want to write something about taxes. I’d say, “Well, what are the basic ideas?” and then I would get a bunch of documents and boil the stuff down. There were people who were doing research. They would put packages together and send it to me.
Roger Stone: I worked very closely with him and I edited large parts of it myself because I have always had some ability to write in Trump’s voice because I’ve known him for 40 years. He’s prescient on a lot of things in the book: terrorism, 9/11, North Korea. But, I mean, the book was really formulated by Shiflett sitting with Trump and just letting Trump talk.
Jerrold Nadler: He had a chapter on the three worst politicians in the United States—Senator Bill Bradley, Lowell Weicker, and Jerry Nadler. That was some pretty good company.
Russell Verney: My impression is that he was deadly serious. He could have picked any subject in the world—real estate development, any type of business advice—and he could have sold a book. Public policy? That was a little harder sell for somebody like Donald Trump.
In the chapter “Should I Run?,” Trump pledges, joking, “I would not rename the White House. I would only want my name on the desk in the Oval Office.”
The reviews were mixed. New York magazine’s Walter Kirn scoffed that Trump was “America’s greatest living comedian,” writing, “As befits this master of unconscious camp, the only jokes in Trump’s campaign book … are unintended.” Kirn was tickled by Trump’s comparisons of himself to the Founding Fathers and his obsession with terrorism, writing, “One almost pities Trump here. The fellow is petrified.”4
Dave Shiflett: Later I got a card from Roger Stone saying, “Dave, thanks for the good work, and you’ll see that your name is on the front of the book. It’s in the smallest font I could find.”
On January 7, 2000, Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Roger Stone5 flew to Minnesota. Melania Knauss was not along for the ride. The couple had split in the previous days, a drama that would play out in the gossip pages over the next few weeks even as Trump’s political aspirations were examined in news columns, the two topics sometimes intersecting.
But Trump was in the Gopher State following through on plans to hold a Reform Party fundraiser and press conference with Ventura. On the acknowledgments page of The America We Deserve Trump thanked the governor: “And to Jesse Ventura, whose breakthrough in Minnesota caused me to start thinking about the role people outside government must play to help our country.”
Dean Barkley: At NPR in downtown St. Paul, I happened to walk by and saw a sign that Trump was coming to Minnesota to talk to Team Ventura. I thought, Oh, that’s interesting. No one told me that. I went to Ventura to see what he knew about this, and he told me, “Trump’s coming, and they’re going to do a rally and raise a little money. He wants to meet you and learn about what we did with our campaign and know how we pulled it off.”
Phil Madsen: At the Northland Inn in Minnesota, two women who were part of his advance team were there a day or two ahead of time. I happened to be standing next to them when a call came in that Trump and Melania had split. They were shocked. It didn’t matter to me. I had other things to think about and worry about, and I barely knew who Melania was. But to them it was a big, big deal. This was a fundraiser for the Independence Party [which the Reform Party was also called in Minnesota]. The thing I cared about most was party growth. And this was a big, fun thing for me. I had Jesse Ventura and Donald Trump raising money for the party.
Dean Barkley: He had a Trump plane then, and he flew it into Minneapolis. They took a motorcade with Jesse, and I met them at the Northland Inn, where the rally was going to be. It’s the nicest hotel in Brooklyn Park, Jesse’s hometown. We went to the top floor. It was a large suite. I had a sportcoat on, and Jesse had his black suit on. His governor’s suit. I was staring at [Trump’s] hair the whole time trying to figure out if it was real. It was puffy and blow-dried and stuck together with whatever it’s stuck together with. It looked like a nice comb-over job.
We were together up there in the hotel room for a good two, three hours before the rally. He was talking, and Roger Stone was doing a lot of note-taking. Basically Trump asked a lot of things. What was your strategy? What did you try to do? How did you think he could win without spending a lot of money?
I told him we were outspent 20 to 1, and it’s win-by-doing. We won a lot of debates. We did well on doing as many events as we could do. And just being different. Being honest to people rather than just telling them what they want to hear. Number one is how we managed to monopolize the press and get all of the free press we could. We wouldn’t have won the governor’s race in ’98 if Jesse hadn’t been a masterful manipulator of the press.
Trump asked a lot about the status of the Reform Party. What it was like dealing with Perot. What my feelings were about him. He was sizing up Perot as an impediment. That’s when I explained my dealings with Ross, which weren’t all that positive. Jesse had the same feelings that I had about Perot’s likelihood of letting someone else take up the mantle of the party.
Jesse Ventura: He came to Minnesota on a book tour. That ain’t a campaign stop. I’ve done plenty of book tours.
At the press conference, Trump promised he would support a lawsuit to get the Reform Party nominee onto the presidential debate stage during the general election. Trump added, “If people think that I’m running, we do great” in the polls. He didn’t ask for Ventura’s endorsement but promised to return soon to seek it if he decided to run.6 Behind the lectern, a Ventura banner with a toll-free phone number hung next to a Trump pennant with the URL www.donaldjtrump2000.com, the website Stone hired Madsen to set up. He also emphasized a point from The America We Deserve, saying that a Reform Party candidate would stand a much better chance of winning the presidency if the U.S. economy were to tank.
This was not merely a stop on a book tour, Trump insisted. “I don’t need this for that. The book, whether it goes to number one as the other three have or whether it doesn’t, is not a major factor economically. It’s not a lot of money in a book no matter how successful it is.”7
Dean Barkley: I didn’t get much of what his actual political philosophy is or why he wanted to run, other than he thought it was interesting to do, so we parted ways after that meeting.
Jesse Ventura: I don’t cross a bridge until I get to it. I’d have to see what he stood for. I’d have to see what his policies were.
Pat Choate: I saw Trump as an opportunist. I saw the same thing with Roger Stone. I had written a book in 1990 called Agents of Influence. It basically was taking a look at lobbying inside Washington, DC. I had spent time on [the lobbying company] Black, Manafort, and Stone. The New Republic, in ’85, had done a cover story calling Stone the sleaziest operator in Washington. And Trump had used Roy Cohn, and it just didn’t seem the right fit. [Paul] Manafort is the guy who really pioneered the whole activity of representing sleazy dictators. I was looking at Trump, that he has a lot of money and is media savvy, and was very good at the New York tabloids. I saw that his run was a hustle, that he was selling books, he was promoting his hotels, he was promoting his business activities. I thought it was not serious, that it was just a way to get cheap publicity.
Ralph Nader: Perot’s got a good family life. He didn’t screw his creditors and consumers, and his businesses, his workers. You list all of Trump’s infirmities and a lot of them are just the opposite with Perot.
Russell Verney: They have different styles, sure, but they’re both successful businessmen. They bring an outside perspective to governance. They’re not creatures created by the establishment and promoted by the establishment and dependent on the establishment. So they’re free to develop their own policies, traditions, and promote them independently.
Pat Choate: Ross Perot wasn’t enthusiastic about Trump. We had conversations I’d rather not repeat. There was no enthusiasm there, let’s just leave it that way.
Trump had boasted that Knauss would make a great first lady and alluded that a wedding might come soon. Ronald Reagan had been divorced, but voters had not picked a bachelor president in more than a century. Only Ralph Nader was unbetrothed among major candidates in 2000. Losing Melania not only left Trump in personal upheaval—it could have had political consequences.
Hoping to pressure the Slovenian model to return to his bed, Trump tipped the New York Post’s lead gossip writer, Richard Johnson, whose January 11, 2000, story was headlined “Trump Knixes Knauss: Donald-Dumped Supermodel Is ‘Heartbroken.’” A “Trump friend” said his decision to split with the 29-year-old was “the hardest thing he has ever done.” 8 The next day’s paper had a photo of Trump surrounded by beauty contestants to promote the Miss USA pageant that would be broadcast on CBS, the caption noting it was taken “just five days after dumping girlfriend Melania Knauss. ‘She meant a lot to me,’ said Trump in between showering the girls with kisses.”
Jared Paul Stern, Page Six reporter: On the item from January 11, where Trump dumps Melania, it’s really a funny item. This ran as a news story with Richard’s byline. This is obviously dictated directly by Trump that he has given Melania the ax, and she’s heartbroken. [Laughs.] With all of his quotes from friends of Trump.
Conrad Black, Canadian financier and publisher: The New York Post used to show up at Trump’s place in Florida. I don’t know the exact arrangement, but Trump was definitely courting Richard [Johnson]. He paid for him to come down there, and he even let him have his wedding there. I assumed he was deemed to be a friendly journalist.*
Maybe Knauss learned from the master? On January 13, the New York Post’s Jared Paul Stern had a story with an alternative version of events, sourced to a Knauss “pal.” This had it that Knauss booted Trump after finding a towel smeared with unfamiliar makeup, evidence he’d rekindled a former flame, model Kara Young. “A Trump friend” presented another explanation: the towel was from his daughter Ivanka. She’s “up there all the time and she uses that bathroom,” the friend said.9
Jared Paul Stern: Then he’s in Palm Beach trying to convince Reform Party members that he could be a presidential candidate.
On January 14, 2000, a New York Post follow-up gave a positive political spin as Trump prepared for a Reform Party gathering at Mar-a-Lago: “Although Trump was glum yesterday over reports that his relationship with Knauss ended because he cheated on her, the brash tycoon got a bit of good news when Reform honcho Russ Verney accepted an invitation to attend.”10
Russell Verney: Just before I went down, I was still working for Perot, and he called me and asked, “Are you going to this meeting at Mar-a-Lago with Trump?” I said, “Yes, I am.” He said, “Why are you going there?” I said, “Because I want to see how a billionaire lives.” He said, “You work with a billionaire.” I said, “Yeah, but he doesn’t live like a billionaire!” Mar-a-Lago was spectacular. It is certainly five stars.
My wife and I were his guests that weekend. We went down to the dining room, sat down, and had a cocktail, and Donald came in the room. He pulled up a chair and was talking with us, and during the conversation he said, “I’m going to give you a recommendation. I told the chef when I was on the flight down here my mother’s recipe for meatloaf. You’ve got to try it, it’s to die for.” So here I am in a five-star restaurant, and I ordered meatloaf, and believe me, it was to die for, it was phenomenal. It was a spectacular place. Beautiful verandas, beautiful views. He took us on a tour of his apartment, which was beautiful.
Mr. Trump and Melania were no longer dating, and he expressed several times how much he missed her and hoped to get back together. I did not inquire about the cause of the breakup or how he planned to get back together with Melania.
Trump hosted more than 100 Reform leaders in Palm Beach. “I’m very proud to be in the party of Ross Perot and Jesse Ventura,” Trump told the gathering, promising a decision by mid-February on whether he would seek the nomination.11
Roger Stone: We hosted at Mar-a-Lago a reception for the Reform Party national committee members, three from each state, chairman and national committee people and other activists. It was a very, very public campaign. This was pre-internet in many ways.
Russell Verney: It was primarily the nuts and bolts of how to accomplish the nomination and whether they anticipate the difficult parts in an independent campaign. We put together a great campaign team out there. So he had contacts and knowledge of what it would take and the ability to get it done if he decided to do it and had the liquid cash to do it.
Everything was working. The Wall Street Journal reported on January 19 that Trump was visiting the construction site for Trump World Tower near the United Nations. Although the article questioned Trump’s claim that he was worth $5 billion and quoted Abraham Wallach saying, “Donald exaggerates sometimes,” it quoted Trump first: “I’m rich and I’m successful. Isn’t that the kind of president you want?”
By January 27, Richard Johnson was reporting in the New York Post that Trump and Melania had made up. “The reconciliation was sparked late last week at a romantic candlelit dinner at Le Cirque 2000 where they kissed and cuddled between courses.”12