Trump Revealed

by Michael Kranish

  As Trump is quick to remind those who write about him, he was there first. Working with writers, Trump has published a shelf full of autobiographical and self-help books. Many of them are repetitive of one another, but Trump: The Art of the Deal (1987), written with Tony Schwartz, is an essential guide to the man’s version of his story, and Trump: Think Like a Billionaire (2004), written with Meredith McIver, contains some important insights into Trump’s psychology. Although Trump often spoke critically about our book in public, in his direct dealings with us, he was gracious and generous with his time, even in the heart of the campaign. We are grateful to his assistant Rhona Graff for helping to carve out the hours that Trump devoted to talking to us about his life and work.

  The true authors of this book are the people who work in the newsroom of the Washington Post. We’d like to thank the Post’s extraordinarily generous senior editors who lent this effort some of their best reporters for many weeks at a time: Local editor Mike Semel, Investigations editor Jeff Leen, Financial editor Greg Schneider, Style editor Liz Seymour, Sports editor Matt Vita, and Morning Mix editor Fred Barbash. Thanks also to MaryAnne Golon and Bronwen Latimer, who direct the Post’s outstanding photo department, for their help arranging the book’s visual elements and the Trump-related photography published in the Post. Greg Manifold, the Post’s design director, and Terri Rupar, the National digital editor, helped usher this work into the Post online and in print.

  The entire national politics staff of the Post—along with dozens of reporters from the rest of the newsroom—has been involved in coverage of the Trump story, and we’re indebted to our colleagues, and especially to politics editors Amy Gardner and Dan Eggen. National editor Scott Wilson somehow managed to assemble the extraordinary staff for this book, help us conceive the structure, and read every draft, all while maintaining his cheerful mien and putting out the best national report in the business. In these trying, existentially threatening times in the journalism industry, we are thrilled (and relieved) to be working in the happiest newsroom in the land, a place where ambitious ideas and big plans are not only welcome but are swiftly put into motion. That’s a tribute to Marty Baron, the executive editor, who championed the book from the start and ensured that every resource would be available for it. He read every page and made valuable suggestions in every chapter. Along with managing editors Cameron Barr and Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, Marty has established the Post as the nation’s most vital newsroom, building upon the ambition of past years even as we dive exuberantly into new forms of storytelling. The Post’s publisher, Fred Ryan, has fostered a journalism-first environment that makes all of this possible.

  Although we have each written several books, neither of us had ever attempted a project of this scope at this speed. To pull that off, someone had to be the enthusiastic, confident, wise, and witty shepherd of the whole thing, and that was Colin Harrison, Scribner’s editor in chief and the editor of this book. Colin was calm when we were frazzled. He saw the whole when we got stuck in the parts. He directed traffic, erased crises, and stood tall for the serial comma. And he had the wisdom to team up with Sarah Goldberg, the savvy and unflappable editorial assistant who was the secret ingredient in our ability to hit deadlines. At Scribner, the publisher, Nan Graham, led a team of people who made the impossible look easy. We are grateful to Carolyn Reidy, Susan Moldow, Roz Lippel, and Paul O’Halloran. Brian Belfiglio, Kate Lloyd, Kara Watson, and Ashley Gilliam got the word out about the book in all manner of creative ways. Thanks to the editors—Irene Kheradi, Monica Oluwek, Emily Fanelli, George Turianski, Katie Rizzo, and Steve Boldt—and designers—Jaime Putorti, Jaya Miceli, Janetta Dancer, and Jonathan Bush—who turned our words into a handsome and urgent package. At S&S Audio, our thanks go to Tom Spain, Elisa Shokoff, and Christina Zarafonitis for their work on the audiobook.

  We’re grateful to the book’s agent, David Black, for his good counsel and close reading, and the work of his associates Jennifer Herrera and Gary Morris. The lawyers at the Washington Post, Jay Kennedy and Kalea Clark, and at Scribner, Lisa Rivlin and Emily Remes, provided careful and prompt review of a mass of material. The Post’s vice president for communications and events, Kris Coratti, and her staff helped shape and execute the promotional plan for the book.

  Both of us vanished from our families and friends for a few months, and we’re forever grateful to those who had to fend off every invitation, friendly inquiry, phone call, or knock at the door with some version of “No, he’s working on the book.”

  Michael: My wife, Sylvia, who is an English teacher among her many other talents, once again proved to be an invaluable proofreader, pencil in hand, and always a beacon of support. My daughters, Laura and Jessica, are an unending source of inspiration, as is my mother, Allye. My late father, Arthur, was a wire service reporter who long ago graced the pages of the Washington Post and many other newspapers, and whose voice and advice forever remain with me.

  Marc: The only person who tackled every draft without getting a paycheck for doing so was my constant and unflagging reader, my wife, Jody. She is still, ever, my light. My parents, Helene and Harwood Fisher, inspired a life of asking questions. I was thrilled that our children, Julia and Aaron, happened to be at home for a good chunk of the time when I was writing this. I wish them times as interesting as these and a life full of characters as fantastic as Mr. Trump.

  MICHAEL KRANISH is an investigative political reporter for the Washington Post. He is the coauthor of John F. Kerry and The Real Romney, both Boston Globe biographies of the presidential candidates, and the author of Flight from Monticello: Thomas Jefferson at War. He was the recipient of the Society of Professional Journalists Award for Washington Correspondence in 2016. Visit www.michaelkranish.com.

  MARC FISHER is a senior editor at the Washington Post, where he has been the enterprise editor, local columnist, and Berlin bureau chief, among other positions over thirty years at the paper. He is the author of Something in the Air, a history of radio, and After the Wall, an account of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany. Fisher wrote several of the Washington Post articles that won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2016 and the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2014. Visit www.marcfisher.com.

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  authors.simonandschuster.com/Marc-Fisher

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  NOTES

  * * *

  PROLOGUE: “PRESIDENTIAL”

  “can’t out-top Abraham Lincoln”: Trump interview with Robert Costa and Bob Woodward, Washington Post, April 1, 2016.

  “I’m the Lone Ranger”: Ibid.

  “your guard up”: Filmed interview with Errol Morris, 2002, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upC8pX3RY0A.

  “making the country better”: Trump interview with Marc Fisher and Michael Kranish, April 21, 2016.

  they should be allowed: “Donald Trump: ‘Be Careful!,’ ” Chicago Sun-Times, March 23, 2015.

  noisy jets roaring: “Decade-Old Plan to Extend Palm Beach Airport Runway Revived,” Associated Press, March 23, 2015.

  reversed course: Brian Swanson, Scottish Express, March 22, 2015, 31.

  “celebrity video cameo”: “Radio City: Excitement Continues to Build around New York Spring Spectacular,” Globe Newswire, March 23, 2015.

  “marketing genius”: Hardball, MSNBC, March 23, 2015.

  “fictional presidential campaigns”: Jeffrey Toobin on The Situation Room, CNN, March 23, 2015.

  “growing swarm”: Philip Rucker and Robert Costa, “With Cruz In, Race for GOP Right
Heats Up,” Washington Post, March 23, 2015.

  “entire year’s salary”: Up with Steve Kornacki, MSNBC, March 21, 2015.

  oddsmakers were betting: “Odds of Ted Cruz Winning White House Sit at 33–1,” Chicago Sun-Times, March 23, 2015.

  “tired of glib talk”: Joe McQuaid, “Publisher’s Notebook,” New Hampshire Union Leader, March 23, 2015, 1A.

  “just a tease”: Trump, on The Kelly File, Fox News Channel, March 23, 2015.

  “germs on your hands”: Trump interview with Fisher and Kranish.

  “The part that”: Paul Manafort, quoted in “Trump Is Playing a Part and Can Transform for Victory,” Washington Post, April 21, 2016.

  “he might be dating her”: Karen Attiah interview with Marc Fisher, March 29, 2016. Trump made the comment about dating Ivanka if she were not his daughter on the ABC talk show The View on March 6, 2006.

  boycott the event: Rosalind S. Helderman, “Rabbis Organize Boycott of Trump’s Speech to Pro-Israel Group,” Washington Post, March 17, 2016.

  “like you folks”: Ibid.

  “beautiful Jewish baby”: Jenna Johnson, “A New Donald Trump Emerges at AIPAC, Flanked by Teleprompters,” Washington Post, March 21, 2016.

  an unscripted “Yeah”: David Weigel, “AIPAC’s Apology for Trump Speech Is Unprecedented,” Washington Post, March 22, 2016.

  “That window is”: The Old Post Office was built in 1899.

  CHAPTER 1: GOLD RUSH: THE NEW LAND

  gold-plated sinks: “Want Your Own Boeing 727? Donald Trump Is Selling His . . . Cheap!,” Flying With Fish, November 10, 2009; Hibah Yousuf, “Donald Trump to Personal Jet: ‘You’re Fired!’ ” CNNMoney, November 10, 2009; and Auslan Cramb, “Donald Trump Flies to Western Isles to Visit Mother’s Home,” Telegraph, June 8, 2008. Note: The 727 Trump used in 2008 is different from the 757 used on the campaign in 2016.

  “I feel very comfortable”: Severin Carrell, “ ‘I Feel Scottish,’ Says Donald Trump on Flying Visit to Mother’s Cottage,” Guardian, June 9, 2008.

  “I have a lot of money”: “ ‘I’ll Be Back,’ Says Trump,” Stornoway Gazette, June 12, 2008.

  luxury hotel: Ibid.

  golf resort: “Trump Golf Inquiry in Full Swing,” BBC News, June 10, 2008.

  “creel of seaweed”: “MacLeod,” Tong & Aird Tong Historical Society.

  Donald Smith: Kenneth Maclennan, Tong: The Story of a Lewis Village (Tong, UK: Tong Historical Society and the Stornoway Gazette, 1984).

  143,000 pounds: Roger Hutchinson, The Soap Man: Lewis, Harris and Lord Leverhulme (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2003).

  retail shops: “Mac Fisheries History,” Mac Fisheries Shops, http://www.macfisheries.co.uk/page2.htm.

  174 men: Malcolm Macdonald, “Iolaire Disaster.” Stornoway Historical Society.

  Leverhulme died: “Lord Leverhulme Dead. Founder of Port Sunlight. Great Captain of Industry,” Argus, May 8, 1925.

  HOLD FAST: Tony Reid, “The Family History of Mary Anne MacLeod, the Mother of Donald J. Trump,” Ancestry.com.

  boarded the SS Transylvania: February 17 and May 2, 1930, manifests of the Transylvania, “New York, Passenger Lists, 1820–1957,” Ancestry.com.

  552 feet: Premal, Admiralty Ships/Subs Lost 1939 to 1946, 515.

  Klanbake: Jim Dwyer, “G.O.P. Path Recalls Democrats’ Convention Disaster in 1924,” New York Times, March 15, 2016.

  preferred stock: S. A. Mathewson, “Now ‘National Origins’ Fix Quotas for Aliens,” New York Times, June 30, 1929.

  lightning knocked out: “Sudden Storms Follow Summer Heat Here; Lightning Kills Man, Puts Out Liberty’s Torch,” New York Times, May 2, 1930.

  Hoover pinned: special to New York Times, “Worst of Depression Over, Hoover Says,” New York Times, May 2, 1930.

  two or three bedrooms: Visit to the house by Frances Sellers, Washington Post, with Roland Paul, director of the Institut fuer pfaelzische Geschichte und Volkskunde.

  created a Weinstrasse: http://www.deutsche-weinstrasse.de/.

  history of emigration: Interview in March 2016 with Roland Paul, director of the Institut fuer pfaelzische Geschichte und Volkskunde.

  Trumpff: Freund Archive of online genealogical research, compiled by Christian Freund, great-grandson of Elizabetha Trump Freund, retrieved from the Web by Kallstadt mayor Thomas Jarowek on June 27, 2010; and Gwenda Blair, The Trumps (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 26.

  Tromp-h: Interview of Simone Wendel, director of Kings of Kallstadt, by Frances Sellers, Washington Post, March 2016.

  Immigration records: Freund Archive, “Passenger List,” SS Eider, October 15, 1885.

  illegal emigrant: Interview with Paul.

  main entry point: Library of Congress, “Rise of Industrial America, 1876–1900.”

  thin face: Friedrich Trump application for passport, May 26, 1904.

  Poodle Dog: An account of Trump’s travels West can be found in Blair, Trumps, 41–93.

  “the Arctic”: Yukon Sun, April 17, 1900, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=3fE2CSJIrl8C&dat=19000417&printsec=frontpage&hl=en.

  On June 6: Freund Archive.

  60 Wall Street: Blair, Trumps, 110.

  “vicious spies”: “War Hysteria and the Persecution of German Americans,” AuthenticHistory.com; and “Wilson Declares Berlin Is Seeking Deceitful Peace,” New York Times, June 15, 1917.

  and soon died: Blair, Trumps, 116. The account of Friedrich Trump’s death was given by Fred Trump in a 1991 interview to biographer Blair.

  The population of Queens: US Census figures, http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0076/NYtab.pdf.

  the Klan remained prominent: “Four in Klan Riot Held for Hearing on Police Charge,” New York Daily Star, June 1, 1927; “Warren Criticizes ‘Class’ Parades,” New York Times, June 1, 1927; “Two Fascisti Die in Bronx, Klansman Riot in Queens, in Memorial Day Clashes,” New York Times, May 31, 1927; and “Warren Ordered Police to Block Parade by Klan,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 31, 1927. Years later, Donald Trump would assert his father was never arrested. The newspaper accounts show that while his father was arrested, the charge was quickly dismissed and thus had no merit.

  Jamaica Estates: “Jamaica Estates Is Active,” New York Times, March 22, 1931.

  seventy-eight homes: Richard J. Roth, “Trump the Builder Plays Mothers as Ace Cards,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 14, 1950.

  he planned to marry: Blair, Trumps, 148.

  “quicker and larger”: “Trump Expects War Scare Will Aid Homes Sales,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 23, 1939.

  “toy balloon fish”: “Show Boat Tells Bathers about Trump Flatbush Homes,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 16, 1939.

  CHAPTER 2: STINK BOMBS, SWITCHBLADES, AND A THREE-PIECE SUIT

  blur of humanity: Interview with Peter Brant, April 2016.

  top five hundred corporations: Ric Burns documentary New York: The Center of the World.

  “Trump’s dumps on stumps”: Interview with Frank Briggs, April 2016.

  $60 a month: Blair, Trumps, 168.

  ten-speed Italian racer: Interview with Steven Nachtigall, April 2016.

  deal was off: Interviews with Chava Ben-Amos and her son, Omri Ben-Amos, April 2016.

  “going to tell my dad”: “Donald Trump’s Old Queens Neighborhood Contrasts with the Diverse Area around It,” New York Times, September 22, 2015.

  throwing rocks: Interview with Dennis Burnham, April 2016.

  “just kept walking”: Interview with Briggs.

  becoming a pilot: Donald Trump with Tony Schwartz, Trump: The Art of the Deal (New York: Ballantine Books, 1987), 70.

  entitled “Alone”: 1954 Kew-Forest yearbook, 72.

  quiet, sensitive: Blair, Trumps, 231.

  “end of Robert’s blocks”: Trump and Schwartz, Art of the Deal (1987), 72.

  “We threw spitballs”: Interview with Paul Onish, April 2016.

  a clunk on Donald’s head: Interview with Sharon Mazzarella, April 2016.

  “he
adstrong and determined”: Interview with Ann Trees, April 2016.

  “terrifying at that age”: Interview with Nachtigall.

  “wasn’t malicious”: Trump and Schwartz, Art of the Deal (1987), 72.

  “very forceful way”: Ibid., 71–72.

  recall neither the incident nor Trump’s ever mentioning it: Interviews with Peter Brant, Mark Golding, and Irik Sevin, April 2016.

  “very rambunctious”: Trump interview with Fisher and Kranish.

  “He was a pain”: “Public Lives: Musical M.C. for Silk Stocking District,” New York Times, February 23, 2000.

  “a little shit”: Interview with Peter Walker, Charles Walker’s son, April 2016.

  pulling his knees up: Interview with Brant.

  “last man standing”: Interview with Chrisman Scherf, April 2016.

  an almost Zen-like ditty: 1958 Kew-Forest yearbook, 93.

  wave at President Eisenhower: Interview with Brant.

  “hit the ball through people”: Interview with Nicholas Kass, April 2016.

  “guns a-blazing”: Interview with Brant.

  too lost in his fury: Interview with Jeff Bier, April 2016.

  cheaper model: Interview with Brant.

  drive them on their routes: Blair, Trumps, 229.

  take Donald with him: Trump and Schwartz, Art of the Deal (1987), 74; and interviews with Brant and Briggs.

  had enough toilets: Interview with Florence Boyar, April 2016.

  having them mixed: Tracie Rozhon, “Fred C. Trump, Post-War Master of Housing for Middle Class, Dies at 93,” New York Times, July 26, 1999.