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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDonald Trump Really Doesnt Want Me to Tell You This, But
This is old but fascinating.
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/12/donald-trump-mark-bowden-playboy-profile
Donald Trump Really Doesnt Want Me to Tell You This, But
Over a long weekend on assignment for Playboy magazine, Mark Bowden found that behind the garish Trump façade lies only more ugliness.
by Mark Bowden
December 10, 2015 8:00 am
I spent a long, awkward weekend with Donald Trump in November 1996, an experience I feel confident neither of us would like to repeat.
He was like one of those characters in an 18th-century comedy meant to embody a particular flavor of human folly. Trump struck me as adolescent, hilariously ostentatious, arbitrary, unkind, profane, dishonest, loudly opinionated, and consistently wrong. He remains the most vain man I have ever met. And he was trying to make a good impression. Who could have predicted that those very traits, now on prominent daily display, would turn him into the leading G.O.P. candidate for president of the United States?
His latest outrageous edict on banning all Muslims from entering the country comes as no surprise to me based on the man I met nearly 20 years ago. He has no coherent political philosophy, so comparisons with Fascist leaders miss the mark. He just reacts. Trump lives in a fantasy of perfection, with himself as its animating force.
Before I met him back in 1996, I felt bad for him. Hed had a rough 10 years. He had just turned 50 and wasnt happy about it. He looked soft, from his growing jowls to the way his belt bit deeply into the spreading roll of his belly. As a businessman he had crashed and burned, rescued only by creditors who had to bail him out lest they be dragged down with him. His enterprises were being run by court-appointed managers, who had put him back on his financial feet mostly by investing heavily in Atlantic City, which was then on the rise.
He had insulated himself from failure with bluster. In public he was still The Donaldstill rich, still working hard at being a symbol of excess. I was working on a profile of him for Playboy, which was his kind of magazine. He considered himself the magazines beau ideal, and was inordinately proud of having been featured on the magazines cover some years before. His then wife, Marla Maples, told him, sardonically, that he ought to buy the magazine: You bought the Miss Universe Pageant; its right up your alley. He must have figured it was a safe bet to agree to cooperate for my story. But well before I left him, we both knew he probably wouldnt like the final product.
I was prepared to like him as I boarded his black 727 at La Guardia for the flight to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida homeprepared to discover that his over-the-top public persona was a clever pose. That underneath was an ironic wit, an ordinary but clever guy. But no. With Trump, what you see is what you get. His behavior was cringe-worthy. He showed off the gilded interior of his planecalling me over to inspect a Renoir on its walls, beckoning me to lean in closely to see . . . what? The luminosity of the brush strokes? The masterly use of color? No. The signature. Worth $10 million, he told me. Time after time the stories he told me didnt check out, from Michael Jacksons romantic weekend at Mar-a-Lago with his then wife Lisa Marie Presley (they stayed at opposite ends of the estate) to the rug in one bedroom he said was designed by Walt Disney when he was 18 (it wasnt) to the strength of his marriage to Maples (they would split months later).
It was hard to watch the way he treated those around him, issuing peremptory ordersPolish this, Tony. Today. He met with the lady who selected his drapery for the Florida estateThe best! The best! Shes a genius!who had selected a sampling of fabrics for him to choose from, all different shades of gold. He left the choice to her, saying only, I want it really rich. Rich, rich, elegant, incredible. Then, Dont disappoint me. It was a pattern. Trump did not make decisions. He surrounded himself with geniuses and delegated. So long as you did not disappoint himand it was never clear how to avoid doing soyou were gold.
What was clear was how fast and far one could fall from favor. The trip from genius to idiot was a flash. The former pilots who flew his plane were geniuses, until they made one too many bumpy landings and became fucking idiots. The gold carpeting selected in his absence for the locker rooms in the spa at Mar-a-Lago? What kind of fucking idiot . . . ? I watched as Trump strutted around the beautifully groomed clay tennis courts on his estate, managed by noted tennis pro Anthony Boulle. The courts had been prepped meticulously for a full day of scheduled matches. Trump took exception to the design of the spaces between courts. In particular, he didnt like a small metal boxa pump and cooler for the water fountain alongsidewhich he thought looked ugly. He first questioned its placement, then crudely disparaged it, then kicked the box, which didnt budge, and then stoopedred-faced and fumingto tear it loose from its moorings, rupturing a water line and sending a geyser to soak the courts. Boulle looked horrified, a weekend of tennis abruptly drowned. Catching a glimpse of me watching, Trump grimaced.
I guess thatll have to be in your story, he said.
Pretty much, I told him.
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http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/12/donald-trump-mark-bowden-playboy-profile
gibraltar72
(7,501 posts)says he hasn't changed since 5th grade.
caroldansen
(725 posts)spanone
(135,816 posts)MoonRiver
(36,926 posts)BSdetect
(8,998 posts)A horror elected to ruin a country.
Mission accomplished?
progressoid
(49,971 posts)It's even more horrifying now that he's in office.
DK504
(3,847 posts)Drumpf doesn't need to think, he has Bannon to do all that pesky running the country thing and little Jared is raking in the moolah.
mountain grammy
(26,614 posts)I remember reading it years ago and shrugging it off as a story about typical, spoiled rich pig donald trump.. now, it's terrifying.