Randal Pinkett strode into the salmon-colored marble atrium of Trump Tower on New York’s Fifth Avenue, stepped into a lift that glided up to the 26th floor and entered an office that, along with a vista of wintry Manhattan, was lined with signed memorabilia and magazine covers bearing the face of Donald Trump. The first and only African-American winner of the US version of the reality television show The Apprentice had arrived for his first day at work.
When he walked in, Pinkett recalls, Trump was methodically working through a stack of magazines and newspapers on his desk. Each item in the stack had a Post-it note. Trump took an item off the top of the stack, put it on his desk and opened it at the note. He read the relevant article then put it to the side. Disconcertingly, this ritual continued throughout their half-hour meeting in early 2006.
“So I’m wondering, is this guy reading current trends in real estate, is he reading stock market coverage, is he reading about global business? I lean over as we’re talking and I realize everything he’s looking at is an article about himself. In fact, at several points in the conversation Donald got so excited about what he was reading about himself that he would pick up the magazine and hold it up to me and say: ‘Look, Randal, do you see that The Apprentice was No. 1 in the ratings last week, isn’t that great?’” Pinkett said. “Apparently, somebody’s job responsibility is to find all this stuff and to organize it for him to read. I can only conclude that Donald loves reading about Donald.”
Illustration: Mountain People
Trump has, according to many who know him, study him or write about him, made Trump his life’s work. Now he is seeking to perfect his masterpiece. His self-belief helped him to sweep aside 16 rivals, including governors and senators, to become the first non-politician in decades to win a major party’s nomination for US president. The billionaire tycoon’s coronation is set to take place this week at the Republican convention in Cleveland, Ohio, ahead of what could be the ugliest election fight ever, against presumptive Democratic US presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.
How Trump got to this once unthinkable, preposterous height is a story of immigrant ancestors working hard and making good, of hustling and hucksterism, of show business and showmanship, of success and celebrity, of bending the truth and branding the enemy, of a particular interpretation of “the pursuit of happiness.”
It is also a story of monumental ego undented by self-doubt.
“He is a world-class narcissist,” said David Cay Johnston, author of the upcoming book The Making of Donald Trump, who estimates his subject’s worth at US$1 billion. “Donald believes that he is this incredibly great person and if you don’t recognize that, you’re a loser.”
Trump was probably best-known to millions of Americans as the presenter of the US version of The Apprentice when, in June last year, he launched his wildly improbable Republican presidential campaign at Trump Tower. After a now-famous descent on an escalator, the property developer delivered a speech in which he said of Mexican immigrants: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.”
Poison was introduced to the US body politic. It contained a key ingredient of the Trump philosophy: what he describes as “truthful hyperbole,” which, he claims, is an innocent form of exaggeration and a very effective form of promotion.
The habit is baked into the Trump family history.
His German grandfather, Friedrich Trump, was 16 when he arrived on a boat in Lower Manhattan with just a suitcase in 1885.
According to biographer Gwenda Blair, he learned English, became a naturalized US citizen, changed the spelling of his name to Frederick and made his way to Seattle to make his fortune — in the red-light district.
He leased a tiny restaurant named the Poodle Dog, which had a kitchen and a bar, and advertised “private rooms for ladies.”
“I began to look at Trump’s father and got a little bit of a notion of his grandfather, and thought: ‘Wow, this is really a dynasty,’” Blair said. “This whole three-generation century of capitalism: They so embody that. The immigrants, the nose for the market, the getting it, that’s what counts, the salesman, the incredible work ethic. They’re all real strivers, really hard workers. Never back down, never give way, always follow success.”
Frederick Trump moved the family to Queens, New York, opened an office and bought some properties, but was killed by the Spanish influenza in the epidemic in 1918.
The business was inherited by his 12-year-old son, Fred, who survived the Great Depression and, Blair writes, told a “flat-out lie” by pretending to be a prosperous property executive. He began to build an empire as a developer and by the late 1920s was selling houses in Queens for nearly US$4,000 each.
In 1936, Fred Trump, who claimed to be Swedish, not German, married Mary MacLeod, herself an immigrant from Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides. They settled in Jamaica Estates, a secluded suburb amid the grit of urban Queens, and their upward mobility was unmissable in their second abode, which on a parallel street was an altogether grander affair with 23 rooms.
Donald — born in June 1946 — and his four siblings spent most of their childhood there. Seventeen brick steps lead up a hill to the entrance, framed by a colonial-style portico, stained-glass crest and six white Doric columns.
There was not much point in neighbors trying to keep up with the Trumps. They had Cadillac convertibles parked in the driveway, with license plates FT and FT1, and a swimming pool, though not many books.
Mark Golding, a close childhood friend of Trump from age six to 13, recalls being driven there by the family chauffeur.
“It had a basement that had this great electric train set up that I was really envious of Donny for having,” said Golding, 69, now a lawyer in Portland, Oregon. “There were four or five trains and they would go all around and pass each other; one would go up a bridge and down. It was the most amazing train set you’ve ever seen.”
Golding, the son of a physician, would sometimes sleep over.
“I remember he had a color TV ... they had a cook and a chauffeur, and that was a bit more than we had — and my parents were not poor by any means,” Golding said.
Trump was the tallest boy in school and Golding was second-tallest, he recalled.
“He was a good guy, at least to me. Some of the kids thought he was a little bit of a bully, but I always got on pretty well with Donny,” Golding said.
Abruptly, the 13-year-old Donald Trump was yanked out of this serene life and packed off to the New York Military Academy, a private boarding school.
Blair, who interviewed him extensively, said: “The story he tells is that he and another kid snuck into Manhattan on the subway and got switchblades, evidently with nothing bad in mind, but they seemed cool, and dad sent him off to military school. Off he went and apparently just loved it.”
Far from breaking him, military academy proved to be the making of Donald Trump, who thrived on competition over everything, from tidying up his room to shining his shoes. Cadets underwent basic military training (each was assigned an M1 rifle and learned how to break it down), studied an academic curriculum (Donald Trump’s interest ended at geometry) and played sport (Donald Trump excelled at baseball and basketball).
The young cadets were living in the shadow of the Cold War amid the uncertainty of the Cuban missile crisis, then the assassination of then-US president John F. Kennedy in 1963.
Peter Ticktin, now a lawyer in Boca Raton, Florida, said: “It had a big effect on all of us. We were all in shock. Everyone cried [including Donald Trump].”
Ticktin was a platoon sergeant, while Donald Trump, two years his senior, was a company captain.
“He was self-confident, maybe a little smug. I wouldn’t go so far as to say arrogant, because he was extremely approachable. There was no reason not to like Donald Trump. He was a good person and I think he still is,” Ticktin said.
Donald Trump went on to Fordham University in the Bronx, then the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in economics in 1968. He helped to manage his father’s portfolio of residential housing projects for the middle class in Brooklyn and Queens, and became favorite to succeed him after his elder brother, Freddy, became a pilot.
His brother died at 43 due to alcoholism, a tragedy that Donald Trump said led him to eschew alcohol, cigarettes and drugs all his life.
Donald Trump made the most of his head start and, with a ferocious work ethic — he rises at about 5am each day — set about building an empire. He crossed the river to Manhattan, a much bigger and more lucrative stage, transforming the rundown Commodore Hotel into the Grand Hyatt and erecting the 68-story Trump Tower, where a portrait of Fred, who died in 1999, still overlooks a bar.
Donald Trump also opened hotels and casinos, a venture that led to four bankruptcy filings, though he has never declared personal bankruptcy. The slump in his fortunes at the end of the “greed is good” 1980s coincided with the collapse of his marriage to Ivana, his wife of 14 years, following an affair with former beauty queen Marla Maples.
Donald Trump was forced to sell buildings, a Boeing 727 and his yacht, the Trump Princess, not that he was ever much of a sailor, but even at this personal and professional nadir, it seems, his self-belief was unshaken.
Roger Stone, 63, a political consultant and friend since meeting Donald Trump in 1979, said: “I don’t think he ever lost faith in himself because he is the greatest negotiator that ever lived and, at a certain juncture, he figured out that he was worth more to the banks alive than he was dead, so if they took him down, they were going down with him. Therefore, he was able to negotiate incredible deals which not only saved his company, but allowed him to rebuild from scratch.”
“When it comes to negotiation, he has got ice water in his veins... He’s a very tough negotiator. He leaves nothing on the table. I would not have wanted to be the banks, because even though he owed them money, he had them by the throat,” he said.
Donald Trump’s recovery in the 1990s — cue for his book The Art of the Comeback — included forays into the entertainment business and he took ownership of the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA beauty pageants, but it was in 2004 that Trump’s celebrity gained liftoff with The Apprentice, in which contestants competed for a shot at a management job within his organization.
He claimed in a financial disclosure form that he was paid a total of US$213 million by NBC.
For years, the equation of Donald Trump equals success was pumped into millions of homes.
“It gave him 10 years of being in front of the American public being the boss, being CEO, hiring people, famously firing people, being the guy who can fix it, the one who knows everything, being the big authoritarian patriarchal guy. I think that has imprinted on a lot of people, that they ‘trust’ him, that that makes him ‘trustworthy,’” Blair said.
Pinkett, 45, who won The Apprentice in 2005, agreed.
“Reality TV, among other factors, has created this hyper-celebrity culture in America that we’re all now immersed in,” Pinkett said. “Celebrity has become its own form of capital and Donald is one of the chief beneficiaries of that cultural phenomenon of celebrity translating into capital. He went from a successful entrepreneur to a media personality and he is now cashing in on that celebrity capital.”
Ten years later, Trump Tower, located beside the 179-year-old luxury jewelry store Tiffany & Co, throbs with activity in midtown Manhattan. On a recent weekday, families in T-shirts and shorts milled around Trump Bar, Trump Grill — where the menu includes Trump Scotch, a selection from the Trump Winery, a Trump Tower steak sandwich and Trump’s homemade ice-cream — Trump Cafe, Trump’s Ice-Cream Parlor and Trump Store, which sells his books, “Make America Great Again” baseball caps, “Success by Trump” deodorant sticks, “Donald J. Trump signature collection” ties, Trump National Golf Club baseball caps and Trump Tower jelly beans and sour beans.
The goods are posh, but unpretentious, like Donald Trump.
A recent photograph showed Donald Trump on his private jet consuming a McDonald’s Big Mac, chips and a Diet Coke.
Supporters say this shows his authenticity.
Stone, who has wanted him to run for the White House since 1988, recalls the Republican national convention that year.
“He was invited to a private black-tie dinner with then-[US] vice president George H.W. Bush and his running mate, senator Dan Quayle. He looked at the engraved invitation which had been delivered by hand to his hotel suite and he said to me: ‘Call down to the desk and find out who has the best cheeseburger in town. Let’s stick this and go out for a burger.’”
Writer Ken Auletta, 74, who covers media for The New Yorker, tells a character-defining story: Auletta, whose father was a nodding acquaintance of Donald Trump’s father at a restaurant where each often had lunch, bumped into Donald Trump years later at a New York Knicks basketball game.
“He came over to me and he said: ‘Hey, Kenny.’ I don’t know anyone who calls me Kenny. He says: ‘Hey, Kenny, how’s your pop?’ I said: ‘Well, actually he died.’ ‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.’ So the next year at a Knicks game I see him and he says: ‘Kenny, how’s your pop?’ So I said: ‘Well, actually he died.’ ‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.’ The third year I see him, he says: ‘Hey, Kenny, how’s your pop?’ I glared at him, and I paused for a second and then I said: ‘My dad’s the same’ and I walked away,” Auletta said.
Donald Trump himself is a father and grandfather. He has five children from three marriages. The offspring from his first — Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric — now help to run the Trump Organization and are playing an ever-expanding role in the election campaign.
Stone, speaking from Miami Beach, Florida, said: “I don’t think anybody would deny that he has a healthy ego, but what he’s really into is his family. He’s extraordinarily proud of his family and proud of the role they’re taking in the business.”
Stone agreed that there is little room for self-reflection.
“I don’t think he has a lot of time for psychobabble. Like Nixon and Reagan, both of whom I worked for, he’s not terribly introspective. He’s more interested in the next fight, the next battle,” Stone said.
Born on 14 June 1946, the fourth of five children of Fred, a property developer, and Mary Trump.
Privately educated at the New York Military Academy, he later graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in economics. Joined his father’s property business.
In 1977, married Ivana Winklmayr, a Czech model. They have the first three of his five children.
In 1982 opened Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.
Property crash of the 1990s hit Trump hard and the Trump Organization required millions in loans to keep it from collapsing.
Divorced Ivana in 1991 and married Marla Maples in 1993, then divorced Maples in 1999 and married model Melania Knauss in 2005.
In 1999, announced his interest to run as the Reform Party candidate in the 2000 US presidential race.
In June last year, announced his run for the Republican presidential nomination. “We are going to make our country great again,” he said.
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