the smoke and mirrors. Early on, we reach our own working understanding: I tacitly accede to his assumption that I am his tool. It’s Trump’s world. I may watch and listen and occasionally ask questions. When permitted, I am a fly on a wall. Otherwise, as far as he’s concerned, I don’t really exist. This, by the way, I regard as optimal working conditions.
Unaccustomed though I am, I have to take Donald Trump seriously. Among other tasks, I must read many books with his name and photograph on the cover, ghostwritten books ostensibly composed by Trump. The overarching theme of this oeuvre would echo several years later, greatly amplified, in
The Apprentice
:
We both know that you’re a complete putz, but you’re at least allowed to fantasize about what my life is like.
And that is in fact what I want to do. During our first encounter, in his office in Trump Tower, I grasp that, whoever or whatever I had previously imagined Trump to be, he is foremost a performance artist. Appearance is never not, at some level, artifice. My objective is to apprehend the person within the persona.
Many books and hundreds of articles have also been written about Trump, and I read those, too. There’s no point in asking Trump questions he’s answered in print already. Anyway, I can come up with a few new ones—say, does Donald Trump have an interior life? No one’s ever asked him that, I bet.
One Saturday in the winter of 1997, he and I spend a morning and afternoon one on one, touring construction projects, in Manhattan (office building) and north of New York City, in Westchester County (golf courses). He drives and I sit in the death seat, taking notes. As we cruise up I-684, I ask about his early-morning routines.
What time do you wake up?
Five-thirty a.m.
What time do you arrive at your desk in the Trump Tower?
Seven or seven-thirty.
How do you spend your time before leaving for the office?
Reading the newspapers, etc.
“O.K.,” I say. “You’re basically alone. Your wife is still asleep”—he was then married, but not for much longer, to his second wife, Marla Maples—“you’re in the bathroom shaving and you see yourself in the mirror. What are you thinking?”
From Trump, a look of incomprehension.
ME: “I mean, are you looking at yourself and thinking, ‘Wow. I’m Donald Trump’?”
Trump remains puzzled.
ME: “O.K., I guess I’m asking, do you consider yourself ideal company?”
(At the time, I deemed Trump’s reply unprintable. But that was then.)
TRUMP: “You really want to know what I consider ideal company?”
ME: “Yes.”
TRUMP: “A total piece of ass.”
On other occasions, for different reasons, I’m baffled by particular Trumpian locutions. He prefaces certain statements with “off-the-record but you can use it.” This makes as much sense as his taxonomy of the real estate he sells: “Luxury, Super Luxury, and Super Super Luxury.”
Spring arrives and the profile is almost finished. I have everything but an ending. I also have a deadline. Late on a Thursday night, I fax the story—ten thousand words, still no ending—to my editor. Ready for bed, I tap the clock radio on my night table, which is tuned to an all-news station. Top of the hour, the headline is: Donald Trump and Marla Maples are separating.
Inconveniently, I’ve seen none of this coming. Conveniently, my article has abruptly become timely. Trump agrees to meet with me in his office the following Monday, and my reward is an ending, an opening scene, and a crystalline certainty about his interior life. Given his domestic vicissitudes, is he happy? Regretful? Self-reflective? His demeanor gives away nothing. Previously, he’s told me that in times of distress he confides in no one. Meanwhile, I’ve interviewed dozens of Trump associates and acquaintances, among them a securities analyst who observes, “Deep down, he wants to be Madonna.”
All of which informs my conclusion that he does not have an interior
Jonathan Strahan [Editor]
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