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Thread: I wrote ‘The Art of the Deal’ with Trump. His self-sabotage is rooted in his past.

  1. #1

    I wrote ‘The Art of the Deal’ with Trump. His self-sabotage is rooted in his past.

    I wrote ‘The Art of the Deal’ with Trump. His self-sabotage is rooted in his past.

    The president's behavior, explained.

    By Tony Schwartz May 16


    Three decades ago, I spent nearly a year hanging around Trump to write his first book, “The Art of the Deal,” and got to know him very well. I spent hundreds of hours listening to him, watching him in action and interviewing him about his life. To me, none of what he has said or done over the past four months as president comes as a surprise. The way he has behaved over the past week — firing FBI Director James B. Comey, undercutting his own aides as they tried to explain the decision and disclosing sensitive information to Russian officials — is also entirely predictable.

    Early on, I recognized that Trump’s sense of self-worth is forever at risk. When he feels aggrieved, he reacts impulsively and defensively, constructing a self-justifying story that doesn’t depend on facts and always directs the blame to others.

    The Trump I first met in 1985 had lived nearly all his life in survival mode. By his own description, his father, Fred, was relentlessly demanding, difficult and driven. Here’s how I phrased it in “The Art of the Deal”: “My father is a wonderful man, but he is also very much a business guy and strong and tough as hell.” As Trump saw it, his older brother, Fred Jr., who became an alcoholic and died at age 42, was overwhelmed by his father. Or as I euphemized it in the book: “There were inevitably confrontations between the two of them. In most cases, Freddy came out on the short end.”

    Trump’s worldview was profoundly and self-protectively shaped by his father. “I was drawn to business very early, and I was never intimidated by my father, the way most people were,” is the way I wrote it in the book. “I stood up to him, and he respected that. We had a relationship that was almost businesslike.”

    To survive, I concluded from our conversations, Trump felt compelled to go to war with the world. It was a binary, zero-sum choice for him: You either dominated or you submitted. You either created and exploited fear, or you succumbed to it — as he thought his older brother had. This narrow, defensive outlook took hold at a very early age, and it never evolved. “When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now,” he told a recent biographer, “I’m basically the same.” His development essentially ended in early childhood.

    Instead, Trump grew up fighting for his life and taking no prisoners. In countless conversations, he made clear to me that he treated every encounter as a contest he had to win, because the only other option from his perspective was to lose, and that was the equivalent of obliteration. Many of the deals in “The Art of the Deal” were massive failures — among them the casinos he owned and the launch of a league to rival the National Football League — but Trump had me describe each of them as a huge success.

    With evident pride, Trump explained to me that he was “an assertive, aggressive” kid from an early age, and that he had once punched a music teacher in the eye and was nearly expelled from elementary school for his behavior.

    Like so much about Trump, who knows whether that story is true? What’s clear is that he has spent his life seeking to dominate others, whatever that requires and whatever collateral damage it creates along the way. In “The Art of the Deal,” he speaks with street-fighting relish about competing in the world of New York real estate: They are “some of the sharpest, toughest, and most vicious people in the world. I happen to love to go up against these guys, and I love to beat them.” I never sensed from Trump any guilt or contrition about anything he’d done, and he certainly never shared any misgivings publicly. From his perspective, he operated in a jungle full of predators who were forever out to get him, and he did what he must to survive.

    Trump was equally clear with me that he didn’t value — nor even necessarily recognize — the qualities that tend to emerge as people grow more secure, such as empathy, generosity, reflectiveness, the capacity to delay gratification or, above all, a conscience, an inner sense of right and wrong. Trump simply didn’t traffic in emotions or interest in others. The life he lived was all transactional, all the time. Having never expanded his emotional, intellectual or moral universe, he has his story down, and he’s sticking to it.

    A key part of that story is that facts are whatever Trump deems them to be on any given day. When he is challenged, he instinctively doubles down — even when what he has just said is demonstrably false. I saw that countless times, whether it was as trivial as exaggerating the number of floors at Trump Tower or as consequential as telling me that his casinos were performing well when they were actually going bankrupt. In the same way, Trump sees no contradiction at all in changing his story about why he fired Comey and thereby undermining the statements of his aides, or in any other lie he tells. His aim is never accuracy; it’s domination.

    The Trump I got to know had no deep ideological beliefs, nor any passionate feeling about anything but his immediate self-interest. He derives his sense of significance from conquests and accomplishments. “Can you believe it, Tony?” he would often say at the start of late-night conversations with me, going on to describe some new example of his brilliance. But the reassurance he got from even his biggest achievements was always ephemeral and unreliable — and that appears to include being elected president. Any addiction has a predictable pattern: The addict keeps chasing the high by upping the ante in an increasingly futile attempt to re-create the desired state. On the face of it, Trump has more opportunities now to feel significant and accomplished than almost any other human being on the planet. But that’s like saying a heroin addict has his problem licked once he has free and continuous access to the drug. Trump also now has a far bigger and more public stage on which to fail and to feel unworthy.

    [I sold Donald Trump $100,000 worth of pianos. Then he stiffed me.]

    From the very first time I interviewed him in his office in Trump Tower in 1985, the image I had of Trump was that of a black hole. Whatever goes in quickly disappears without a trace. Nothing sustains. It’s forever uncertain when someone or something will throw Trump off his precarious perch — when his sense of equilibrium will be threatened and he’ll feel an overwhelming compulsion to restore it. Beneath his bluff exterior, I always sensed a hurt, incredibly vulnerable little boy who just wanted to be loved.

    What Trump craves most deeply is the adulation he has found so fleeting. This goes a long way toward explaining his need for control and why he simply couldn’t abide Comey, who reportedly refused to accede to Trump’s demand for loyalty and whose continuing investigation into Russian interference in the election campaign last year threatens to bring down his presidency. Trump’s need for unquestioning praise and flattery also helps to explain his hostility to democracy and to a free press — both of which thrive on open dissent.

    As we have seen countless times during the campaign and since the election, Trump can devolve into survival mode on a moment’s notice. Look no further than the thousands of tweets he has written attacking his perceived enemies over the past year. In neurochemical terms, when he feels threatened or thwarted, Trump moves into a fight-or-flight state. His amygdala is triggered, his hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activates, and his prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain that makes us capable of rationality and reflection — shuts down. He reacts rather than reflects, and damn the consequences. This is what makes his access to the nuclear codes so dangerous and frightening.

    Over the past week, in the face of criticism from nearly every quarter, Trump’s distrust has almost palpably mushroomed. No importuning by his advisers stands a chance of constraining him when he is this deeply triggered. The more he feels at the mercy of forces he cannot control — and he is surely feeling that now — the more resentful, desperate and impulsive he becomes.

    Even 30 years later, I vividly remember the ominous feeling when Trump got angry about some perceived slight. Everyone around him knew that you were best off keeping your distance at those times, or, if that wasn’t possible, that you should resist disagreeing with him in any way.

    In the hundreds of Trump’s phone calls I listened in on with his consent, and the dozens of meetings I attended with him, I can never remember anyone disagreeing with him about anything. The same climate of fear and paranoia appears to have taken root in his White House.

    The most recent time I spoke to Trump — and the first such occasion in nearly three decades — was July 14, 2016, shortly before the New Yorker published an article by Jane Mayer about my experience writing “The Art of the Deal.” Trump was just about to win the Republican nomination for president. I was driving in my car when my cellphone rang. It was Trump. He had just gotten off a call with a fact-checker for the New Yorker, and he didn’t mince words.

    “I just want to tell you that I think you’re very disloyal,” he started in. Then he berated and threatened me for a few minutes. I pushed back, gently but firmly. And then suddenly, as abruptly as he began the call, he ended it. “Have a nice life,” he said, and hung up.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/poste...ed-in-his-past
    “I don’t think that there will be any curtailing of Donald Trump as president,” he said. "He controls the media, he controls the sentiment [and] he controls everybody. He’s the one who will resort to executive orders more so than [President] Obama ever used them." - Ron Paul



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  3. #2
    Schwartz said, “But for 29 years, I didn’t think he would, and it didn’t seem like it was important to speak out. I now feel it’s my civic duty.”

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...co-author-say/

    "Civic duty."




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    ...I believe that when the government is capable of doing a thing, it will.
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    which one of yall fuckers wrote the "ron paul" racist news letters
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  4. #3
    First grader for sure. Never grew. Basically he is mentally challenged....but since he doesn't like PC...RETARDED.
    War; everything in the world wrong, evil and immoral combined into one and multiplied by millions.

  5. #4
    Someones fishing for a royalty advance.

  6. #5
    Pretty much the way I've always viewed Trump.
    There is no spoon.

  7. #6
    It explains why he gets so triggered every time someone mentions Russia. The implication is that if the Russians swung the election, then his win was illegitimate. And he is still to this very day talking about winning the electoral college.
    “I don’t think that there will be any curtailing of Donald Trump as president,” he said. "He controls the media, he controls the sentiment [and] he controls everybody. He’s the one who will resort to executive orders more so than [President] Obama ever used them." - Ron Paul

  8. #7
    Spot on OP

    Matches the impressions of many others who've known Trump personally, as well as what's obvious to us in the peanut gallery with eyes to see.

  9. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by CPUd View Post
    It explains why he gets so triggered every time someone mentions Russia. The implication is that if the Russians swung the election, then his win was illegitimate. And he is still to this very day talking about winning the electoral college.
    he is triggered about Russia because it is completely false.



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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Ender View Post
    Pretty much the way I've always viewed Trump.
    Sounds like any generic sociopath politician to me. It is a rare individual that can be an effective businessperson and/or a politician, while genuinely being concerned with emotions and the well-being of others. They do exist but extremely rare. It is also rare for such people to be from emotionally-driven loving and nurturing backgrounds, instead of competitive, goal-oriented backgrounds.
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing."-Ron Paul

    "We have set them on the hobby-horse of an idea about the absorption of individuality by the symbolic unit of COLLECTIVISM. They have never yet and they never will have the sense to reflect that this hobby-horse is a manifest violation of the most important law of nature, which has established from the very creation of the world one unit unlike another and precisely for the purpose of instituting individuality."- A Quote From Some Old Book

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by devil21 View Post
    Sounds like any generic sociopath politician to me. It is a rare individual that can be an effective businessperson and/or a politician, while genuinely being concerned with emotions and the well-being of others. They do exist but extremely rare. It is also rare for such people to be from emotionally-driven loving and nurturing backgrounds, instead of competitive, goal-oriented backgrounds.
    How can you be so suspicious? Politicians love you and have your best interest at heart. Some of them even go to empathy classes in order to act out appropriately.

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by timosman View Post
    How can you be so suspicious? Politicians love you and have your best interest at heart. Some of them even go to empathy classes in order to act out appropriately.
    I have some sociopath in me so I'm always suspicious! Fortunately, I had some offsetting influences to balance it out a little, unlike Trump apparently.
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing."-Ron Paul

    "We have set them on the hobby-horse of an idea about the absorption of individuality by the symbolic unit of COLLECTIVISM. They have never yet and they never will have the sense to reflect that this hobby-horse is a manifest violation of the most important law of nature, which has established from the very creation of the world one unit unlike another and precisely for the purpose of instituting individuality."- A Quote From Some Old Book

  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by devil21 View Post
    Sounds like any generic sociopath politician to me. It is a rare individual that can be an effective businessperson and/or a politician, while genuinely being concerned with emotions and the well-being of others. They do exist but extremely rare. It is also rare for such people to be from emotionally-driven loving and nurturing backgrounds, instead of competitive, goal-oriented backgrounds.
    Posted it a few times but THIS seems the perfect analysis of Trump.

    There is no spoon.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ender View Post
    Posted it a few times but THIS seems the perfect analysis of Trump.

    Perfect analysis of trump, from an actor. Posted many times by the entertainment culture fantasy land zombie, trying to tell us what reality is. No surprise someone who obviously STILL watches a lot of TV and movies would care what effing Johnny Depp has to say about politics. No surprise someone who obviously STILL watches a lot of TV and movies (and calls them great writing and acting) would hate Trump, since all his favorite actors playing his favorite characters from his pile of stupid, pointless, corporate written boardroom propaganda morality megaphones hate Trump too.

    Stop watching Hollywood TV and movies and get with reality.

  16. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by UWDude View Post
    Perfect analysis of trump, from an actor.
    Well, Trump's an actor. They have something in common.

    ...except, AFAIK, Johnny Depp isn't directing US foreign policy.

    No surprise someone who obviously STILL watches a lot of TV and movies would care what effing Johnny Depp has to say about politics
    We should never care what TV characters have to say about politics...

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    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post
    Well, Trump's an actor.
    He was a billionaire first. Big difference.

    We should never care what TV characters have to say about politics...
    You should never watch TV and movies. They are garbage.

  18. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by UWDude View Post
    He was a billionaire
    Fake news



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  20. #17
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    He was a billionaire
    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post
    Fake news
    I see you have completely divorced yourself from reality in your rabid hatred of Trump.

  21. #18
    The Washington Hoax. Lol.
    Pfizer Macht Frei!

    Openly Straight Man, Danke, Awarded Top Rated Influencer. Community Standards Enforcer.


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  22. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by UWDude View Post
    I see you have completely divorced yourself from reality in your rabid hatred of Trump.
    Show me one piece evidence that he's worth $1 billion (let alone the $10B he claims).

    I'll wait.

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    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post
    Show me one piece evidence that he's worth $1 billion (let alone the $10B he claims).
    https://www.forbes.com/donald-trump/#5058e1522899

    His NYC real estate is worth $1.7 Billion alone.

    Let me know when you have crunched the data and scoured the records to disprove this.

    I'll wait.

  24. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by UWDude View Post
    https://www.forbes.com/donald-trump/#5058e1522899

    His NYC real estate is worth $1.7 Billion alone.

    Let me know when you have crunched the data and scoured the records to disprove this.

    I'll wait.
    A. I've read the article.

    It's based on a series of assumptions about his stakes in businesses with his name on it.

    And it ignores whatever debt he may have.

    ...I might own $100 billion in assets, and owe $101 billion, and am consequently broke.

    B. Is Forbes now not fake news, just for the record?

  25. #22
    People are quoting Johnny asswipe Depp now?! Isn't this the POS who beats his wife? Progressives criticize Don for having gold diggers around, but somehow I should listen to this f*cking douchebag who beats up women.
    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    ...I believe that when the government is capable of doing a thing, it will.
    Quote Originally Posted by Influenza View Post
    which one of yall fuckers wrote the "ron paul" racist news letters
    Quote Originally Posted by Dforkus View Post
    Zippy's posts are a great contribution.




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    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post
    A. I've read the article.

    It's based on a series of assumptions about his stakes in businesses with his name on it.

    And it ignores whatever debt he may have.

    ...I might own $100 billion in assets, and owe $101 billion, and am consequently broke.
    Let me know when you have crunched the data and scoured the records to disprove this.

    B. Is Forbes now not fake news, just for the record?
    I trust their number crunching on financial matters a hell of a lot more than your baseless rhetorical what ifs.

    So anyway,

    Let me know when you have crunched the data and scoured the records to disprove this.

    I'll wait.

  27. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by NorthCarolinaLiberty View Post


    Schwartz said, “But for 29 years, I didn’t think he would, and it didn’t seem like it was important to speak out. I now feel it’s my civic duty.”

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...co-author-say/





    "Civic duty."




    lol, I can imagine how that conversation went..


    Schwartz: "Hey Deep State, I have that article ready to publish, when should I send it in?"

    Deep State: "Not yet."

    Schwartz: "Hey Deep State, remember I have that article ready to publish, should I send it in now? He's really $#@!ing up.."

    Deep State: "Not yet."

    Schwartz: "Hey Deep State, how about now?"

    Deep State: "Not yet."

    Schwartz: "Hey Deep State.."

    Deep State: "Not yet."

    Schwartz: "Hey..."

    Deep State: "Wait."

    ...... 6 months later

    Deep State: "Do it now."


    "He's talkin' to his gut like it's a person!!" -me
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    "When you are divided, and angry, and controlled, you target those 'different' from you, not those responsible [controllers]" -Q

    "Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes. But let it not be said that we did nothing." - Ron Paul

    "Paul said "the wave of the future" is a coalition of anti-authoritarian progressive Democrats and libertarian Republicans in Congress opposed to domestic surveillance, opposed to starting new wars and in favor of ending the so-called War on Drugs."



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  29. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by UWDude View Post
    Let me know when you have crunched the data and scoured the records to disprove this.

    I trust their number crunching on financial matters a hell of a lot more than your baseless rhetorical what ifs.

    So anyway,

    Let me know when you have crunched the data and scoured the records to disprove this.

    I'll wait.
    I'm sure that you've "crunched the data."

    It couldn't be that you've invested so deeply in retard-Hitler that any criticism of him you take as criticism of yourself.

    That would be sad...


  30. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by NorthCarolinaLiberty View Post
    People are quoting Johnny asswipe Depp now?! Isn't this the POS who beats his wife? Progressives criticize Don for having gold diggers around, but somehow I should listen to this f*cking douchebag who beats up women.
    Pfizer Macht Frei!

    Openly Straight Man, Danke, Awarded Top Rated Influencer. Community Standards Enforcer.


    Quiz: Test Your "Income" Tax IQ!

    Short Income Tax Video

    The Income Tax Is An Excise, And Excise Taxes Are Privilege Taxes

    The Federalist Papers, No. 15:

    Except as to the rule of appointment, the United States have an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but they have no authority to raise either by regulations extending to the individual citizens of America.

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    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post
    I'm sure that you've "crunched the data."

    It couldn't be that you've invested so deeply in retard-Hitler that any criticism of him you take as criticism of yourself.

    That would be sad...

    So anyway,

    Let me know when you have crunched the data and scoured the records to disprove this.

    I'll wait.

  32. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by UWDude View Post
    So anyway,

    Let me know when you have crunched the data and scoured the records to disprove this.

    I'll wait.
    Let me know when you acquire any evidence that Trump has $1.

    You've provided none so far.

    Here's a good indication that, having a dollar, he hasn't got much else.

    This is of course in addition to the fact that he's a big spending, warmongering leftist, which is what actually matters.

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    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post
    Let me know when you acquire any evidence that Trump has $1.

    You've provided none so far.

    Here's a good indication that, having a dollar, he hasn't got much else.

    This is of course in addition to the fact that he's a big spending, warmongering leftist, which is what actually matters.
    So anyway,

    Let me know when you have crunched the data and scoured the records to disprove this.

    I'll wait.

  34. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by r3volution 3.0 View Post
    It couldn't be that you've invested so deeply in retard-Hitler...
    That is exactly the hyperbole spewed by people who are so nervous about Don Trump. Didn't take them long to pull that emotional card. It speaks to my post about why these relationships and alliances are not either/or and static, but rather tenuous and sometimes even volatile.
    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    ...I believe that when the government is capable of doing a thing, it will.
    Quote Originally Posted by Influenza View Post
    which one of yall fuckers wrote the "ron paul" racist news letters
    Quote Originally Posted by Dforkus View Post
    Zippy's posts are a great contribution.




    Disrupt, Deny, Deflate. Read the RPF trolls' playbook here (post #3): http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...eptive-members

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