DAntonio Michael - The Truth About Trump

The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the authors copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

For Toni

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 wasnt surprised. Don, as he insisted I call him, feels offended when people dont serve him. And when he feels offended, he considers you dead. As he told me, When somebody does something to me, they died. Its over. Theres no coming back. Thats okay. There are billions of people in the world. You dont need them.

Months passed and then the caller ID screen on my ringing phone flashed Trump Tower. The call came from one of Trumps lawyershe employs many of themnamed 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 readers reliance on a writers 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 wasnt 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, Cohens 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.

Youre not really giving me anything, he said with an exasperated tone.

Michael, Im not supposed to, I answered.

I think he chuckled.

After our jousting conversation, Cohen followed up with calls to the legal department at my publishers 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, Cohens 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 conspicuouslythey all but flex their muscles and flash their weaponsin 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.) Trumps 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. Id like to punch him in the face, Ill tell you that.

Delivered without notes, or any apparent preparation, Trumps campaign speeches were devoid of policy details and resembled comedy shows offered to eager fans who werent 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. Its 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, its not that bad an ad either. Its likeyou know.

(Laughter)

If youre going to do an ad, do an ad. But hes a low-energy person. Lets face it. We dont need low-energy. We need lots of energy.

(Applause)

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

(Applause)

Now, Im going to be spending. You probably saw Im going to spendnow, were going to start spending a lot of money because I dont want to take any chances. You know, itsI love getting upand for the last couple of months, I have been leading from practically the time I announced, right? And for the lastand leading a lot. Im 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, Trumps 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 mans 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 Trumps 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 werent 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.