Jan 8^th

“The Art of the Deal” by Donald Trump is interesting, at least is spots. The first chapter is a day book of one of Trump’s weeks with his various daily appointments all with famous names. You can skip this because it is essentially an ego trip. The “Deal” part starts with the second chapter and it’s informative. Trump lays out some fairly obvious principals about negotiation such as, “Think Big; Protect the Downside and the Upside Will Take Care of Itself; Use your Leverage: Enhance your Location and other similar bits of advice. The book was published in 1987 and is co-written with Tony Swartz so the book was written about thirty years ago.

He is certainly “thinking big;” aiming for the Presidency as your first elective office is certainly thing about as big as you can. He also has some interesting comments about the press: “They’re always hungry for a good story, and the more sensational the better…if you do things that are bold or outrageous the press is going to write about you.” He has surely taken advantage of that; his control of the press has enabled him to spend next to nothing on publicity. He can get on any talk show he likes, even at the last minute.

Then a few pages later he writes, “The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to peoples fantasies. …People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular… I call it truthful hyperbole.” Well of course; he still inflates everything from his wealth to the crowds he draws. It’s all part of a pattern he began thirty years ago. Not everyone agrees that it is “truthful” hyperbole.

There are some changes from 1987: Trump in this book is very complimentary about Ivana, his wife. He had married her in 1977 ten years before this book was published and had given her control over some of his properties. He was pleased with her accomplishments. But then by 1990 Trump’s involvement with the actress/model Marla Maples had been well enough documented that Ivana sued for divorce. In due course Marla became pregnant and a daughter was born to the couple, whereupon they got married. This happened in 1993; by 1999 Trump discovered he had reason to divorce Marla on the grounds of unfaithfulness, the very same grounds Ivana had used against him a few years earlier. How about that! Trump has now remarried, this time to another actress/model, Melania who is 24 years Trump’s junior.

Trump’s bankruptcies all came after “The Art of the Deal” was published. Before 1987 Trump was using his own money to make his deals, or at least he had borrowed it.  His first bankruptcy was in 1991 when the Taj Mahal was 3 billion in debt with Trump responsible for 900 million of that. Another bankruptcy followed in 2002, 2004, and finally in 2009. These were all Chapter 11 bankruptcies which involved reorganization, usually to get easier credit terms or reduce the influence of some manager, usually Trump. The companies didn’t go out of business.

It seems that Donald Trump’s style is easily predictable from his second favorite book (The Bible is his first of course.) Only in America.