It’s one of the paradoxes of Trump that this aura of exclusivity goes over best with some of the most excluded elements of society. In an 800-person survey conducted by Democratic pollster Rob Schroth, Trump scored a 67% favorable rating among blacks (vs. 21% unfavorable), 62% among Hispanics, and 66% among whites earning under $25,000, substantially higher than either Al Gore or Bill Bradley in each category. Real estate agents say Trump is also big among immigrants, many of whom flock to his buildings. Admiring rap artists have recorded odes like “Black Trump” and “Trump Change.”… Trump is, in short, a workingman’s plutocrat: a nonbusinessman’s idea of what a businessman should be. (Supporters standing in line at a Trump Tower book signing included a Greenwich Village artist who was “attracted to the power of myth in our society,” an Orthodox rabbi who “heard he loves the Jews,” and a soccer mom who noted, optimistically, that “he’s never been indicted.”)
Scratch soccer mom.
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“He has this ability to relate to the doorman, to the guy who’s carrying the iron or steel, and make that guy feel good and important,” says Colony Capital CEO Tom Barrack.
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Among Trump’s theoretical peers, which is to say other rich business people, the situation is different. When Fortune asked several thousand of them to rank 469 companies for its 1999 list of Most Admired Companies, they put Trump’s casino company dead last. More specifically, they ranked it worst in quality of management, use of corporate assets, employee talent, long-term investment value, and social responsibility.
… deep down, the disrespect clearly rankles.
… “I don’t think anybody knows how big my business is.”
Tish James has a pretty good idea.
It was widely presumed, of course, that Trump’s political noodlings were just that: a promotion, a cynical ploy to sell books and condos—politics as the continuation of salesmanship by other means, if you will. But after spending time with Trump over several weeks, I became convinced otherwise. The man seriously wanted to seek the American presidency—to win, as he put it, “the whole megillah.”
…
But it all raised the question: Just how successful a businessman is he?
A couple of weeks after the Minnesota trip I was sitting in the Trump Tower offices of the Trump Organization, surrounded by magazine covers featuring Donald Trump and flanked by two of Trump’s lieutenants. In front of me sat Donald Trump. He was wearing a blue suit, cuff links, and one of his famous red ties; his hair, as usual, seemed to be levitating slightly above his skull in a baroque swirl. … I mumbled something polite, then turned the conversation to the task at hand: figuring out what Trump’s empire actually consisted of.
Easier said than done. Trump delights in the sort of elaborate shell games and impenetrably complex deals that frustrate the most conscientious efforts to assess a person’s true worth. “It’s always good to do things nice and complicated,” he once told an interviewer, “so that nobody can figure it out.”
That difficulty is compounded by Trump’s astonishing ability to prevaricate. No one’s saying Trump ought to be held to the same standards of truthfulness as everyone else; he is, after all, Donald Trump. But when Trump says he owns 10% of the Plaza hotel, understand that what he actually means is that he has the right to 10% of the profit if it’s ever sold. When he says he’s building a “90-story building” next to the U.N., he means a 72-story building that has extra-high ceilings. And when he says his casino company is the “largest employer in the state of New Jersey,” he actually means to say it is the eighth-largest.
The predictable result is the steady stream of articles debunking Trump’s exaggerated claims—particularly his oft-repeated assertion that he’s worth $5 billion.
And one indictment.
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Nowhere are Trump’s self-defeating tendencies more evident than with his casino company, Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts, which he took public in 1995 under the monogram ticker symbol DJT. … The stock climbed to $34—then headed straight for the toilet.
Gold plated.
…
… The company lost $134 million after depreciation and special items in 1999, and S&P recently lowered Trump’s bond rating from junk to junkier.
But most disquieting is Trump’s tendency to use the casino company as his own personal piggy bank. … he further angered investors in 1998 when he had the already cash-strapped company lend him $26 million to pay off a personal loan from Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette.
…Trump confirms that he is considering a $25 million to $30 million mortgage on that property, but insists he has the money to meet the obligation. “Our cash flow has been tremendous,” Trump says. He is sensitive on this point: Trump had his lawyer send a letter threatening to sue Fortune and me, saying, “It is our information that the article will contain false and misleading material concerning, among other things, the net worth and cash flow of The Trump Organization and/or Mr. Trump.” During one of our telephone discussions (which Trump later admitted he had begun taping), Trump said he would “sue the ass off of Fortune” if I were to “disparage [his] cash flow.”
A couple of people close to Trump and otherwise sympathetic to him suggested to me that he’s unfit to be running a public company.
Like the White House.
… Another puzzling aspect of Trump’s public image is that even though he runs two companies that together employ 22,000 people, one never gets the sense of an organization underneath him. Indeed, one could easily come to the conclusion that he’s not only a sole proprietor but a sole employee. But in fact Trump has assembled an extremely loyal crew within his 50-person corporate office: CFO Allen Weisselberg…
Convicted felon, Class of 2023, served five-month jail sentence.
Nick Ribis began as Trump’s lawyer in 1977…
Resigned/fired 2016
“He’s got a very good team. It’s not just a show front,” says Abe Wallach. [“had a penchant for theft”] “This is a professionally run real estate organization.”
…
… he threatened to sue George after the magazine seemed to suggest that he had filed for personal bankruptcy in the early ’90s. This got me thinking that the cause of his behavior perhaps wasn’t so much egotistical as medical. I even called a psychiatrist to get his clinical assessment of Trump. (He suggested an overmastering need to escape the shadow of his father, Fred, a successful outer-borough developer who died last year and whom Trump rarely mentions.)
…
In the end, one is simply humbled before the awesome insularity of his logic. “I own a lot of things that I don’t have my name on,” he explained at one point. “But when I don’t put my name on it, nobody knows that I own it. That’s one of the reasons I like putting my name on things.”
Outside the General Motors Building, Trump and I paused by his limo for a few seconds to stare up at the huge trump lettering on the facade. “See how understated that is?” he said in a rare outburst of irony. A foreign-sounding woman on the street recognized him. “Are you going to be a President?” she asked. “Absolutely,” said Trump. “No doubt about it.”
Three weeks later (after Fortune had flown with him to St. Louis for some final politicking and, yes, a Tony Robbins speech) Trump announced he wasn’t running. The proximate cause was the Reform Party meeting that ended with red-faced delegates screaming and jostling one another for microphones, and Jesse Ventura’s subsequent secession from the “dysfunctional” party. Privately, I wondered if Trump had begun to doubt his own constitutional capability for certain political rituals, notably the concession speech. But the final nail in the coffin was John McCain’s surprise surge in the polls. Roger Stone felt robbed: “He’s running on Trump’s message.”
Thus the source of Trump’s grudge against McCain.
