The Art of the Deal!

Trump’s best-selling book, The Art of the Deal, was ghost written! The ghost-writer was interviewed for an article (in The New Yorker magazine by Jane Mayer) about the book and about Donald Trump. What Mayer says and what the ghost-writer says is frightening!
by Charlie Leck

In Trump’s announcement this past June that he would run for president, Donald Trump listed his qualifications: “We need a leader that wrote The Art of the Deal!” The book, of course, was ghost written by Tony Schwartz, who recently commented to Jane Mayer for her column in The New Yorker: “I put lipstick on a pig!” I think it’s a terrific piece. I suggest you read it before really deciding to vote for the Donald. Schwartz had gotten to know Trump so very personally, so it is interesting to hear him tell us that the idea of Trump as president (the President) terrifies him.

Tony Schwartz suggests that the book ought to have been called “The Sociopath!” Oh, my! Here’s a clip from the magazine.

“Schwartz had written about Trump before. In 1985, he’d published a piece in New York Magazine called A Different Kind of Donald Trump Story, which portray him not as a brilliant mogul but as a ham-fisted thug who had unsuccessfully tried to evict rent-controlled and rent-stabilized tenants from a building that he had bought on Central Park South. Trump’s efforts – which included a plan to house homeless people in the building in order to harass the tenants – became what Schwartz described as a ‘fugue of failure, a farce of fumbling and bumbling.”

Amazingly, “Trump loved the article!”

I loved the comment Schwartz made in the magazine article about his decision to write the book: “He knew he would be making a Faustian bargain!”

“It was one of a number of times in my life when I was divided between the Devil and the higher side.”

One of the problems Schwartz encountered as he began working on the book was that the man had “no attention span!... like a kindergartner who can’t sit still in a classroom.”

Amazingly, this adult Donald Trump might become president of the United States! Schwartz said of Donald’s ability to sit and think: “…it’s impossible to keep him focused on any topic, other than his own self-aggrandizement, for more than a few minutes… If he had to be briefed on a crisis in the Situation Room, it’s impossible to imagine him paying attention over a long period of time.”

From all that Schwartz said about his time and interviews with Trump, it’s impossible for me to imagine the Donald reading a long, complicated report about international problems or possible dangers to the nation.

In fact, I don’t believe that Donald Trump understands the complexities of being the president. He looks at it as just an office where he can get immeasurable attention while he keeps making his own personal business deals. I imagine he plans to have a staff do all that tough reading and study.

Trump will be a joke in international conferences and in complex meetings with the heads of other nations. He’ll try to get leaders of other nations to allow him to build hotels or gambling casinos on their most attractive pieces of land.

As for the infamous wall, Donald will become bored with this project very quickly. There’s no money in it for him!

Schwartz says he thinks Trump’s problem with paying attention makes him a man with “a stunning level of superficial knowledge and plain ignorance.” (As he said to Jane Mayer who wrote The New Yorker article.)

How many important books of fiction or non-fiction do you imagine that Donald Trump has read – straight through – all the way! I can’t imagine him reading the four volume biography of Lyndon Johnson written by Robert Caro. Douglas Brinkley’s marvelous biography of Jimmy Carter, The Unfinished Presidency, would be an impossible read for him. Forget Thomas Piketty’s important book Capital.

When asked by Megyn Kelly (Fox News) about his favorite book, Trump’s reply is almost unbelievable. Jane Mayer quotes Trump’s answer to the question:

“I read passages, I read areas, I’ll read chapters – I don’t have the time!”

Schwartz told Mayer that “Trump seemed driven by a need for public attention.”

There are a number of examples of Trump’s untruthfulness or, more precisely, as Schwartz says, that “lying is second nature to him.” Schwartz continued…

“He lied strategically. He had a complete lack of conscience about it!”

When confronted by such lies or incredible boasting, as we’ve seen in the campaign, “…Trump would often double down, repeat himself, and grow belligerent.

Are these the traits and characteristics we want in our president – the President of the United States of America?

I can’t believe how many people are being suckered in by this incredible and scandalous liar!

Jane Mayer paints a remarkable picture of the real Donald Trump in her extraordinary article. This particular description sends chills up my spine…

“Often, after spending the day with Trump, and watching him pile one hugely expensive project atop the next, like a circus performer spinning plates, Schwartz would go home and tell his wife, ‘He’s a living black hole!’”

I guess it would be more helpful to all of us, instead of reading The Art of the Deal, if we would read Trump Nation by Timothy L. O’Brien. Mr. O’Brien makes it clear that Donald Trump is a liar of serious dimensions. For instance, Trump has told the world, a number of times, that his wife, Ivana, had been a top model and an alternate on the Czech Olympic ski team. Not true!

Remember Trump’s insistence that President Obama had not been born in America and that he (Donald Trump) had investigators who had come up with interesting proof about this claim of his. There was never any truth to that. Not one shred of evidence was produced by Mr. Trump.

Trump’s life is, itself, a lie. He’s lied about how unimportant his father was in establishing his wealth – that he’s made it on his own. Not true! Had it not been for good-old-dad this man would be a nobody and only the blow-hard and self-obsessed person he is. Donald Trump is a narcissist of worrisome proportion.

Here’s Schwartz’s final word on Trump in The New Yorker article – it’s quite incredible and, I believe, very true…

“If Trump is elected President, the millions of people who voted for him and believe that he represents their interests will learn what anyone who deals closely with him already knows – that he couldn’t care less about them!’”

Think about it!

We mustn’t allow Donald Trump to become President!

_______________________________

*The article appeared in the July 25, 2016 issue of The New Yorker.

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