With Donald Trump set to secure the Republican nomination for president this week, the ghostwriter behind Trump’s book “The Art of the Deal,” revealed the real estate mogul’s true character that the book ignored.
“I put lipstick on a pig,” writer Tony Schwartz told the New Yorker. “I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is.”
Schwartz actually suggested that Trump write “The Art of the Deal” instead of the autobiography Trump had set out to pen. The real estate mogul then asked Schwartz to help him write the book, and Schwartz agreed when Trump offered him half of the advance and of the royalties.
“It was one of a number of times in my life when I was divided between the Devil and the higher side,” Schwartz told the New Yorker.
Schwartz said that if he could rename the book, he would call it “The Sociopath.”
“I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization,” he said.
The author said that he plans on donating the royalties he earns from the book in 2016 to charities like the National Immigration Law Center and Human Rights Watch.
“I’ll carry this until the end of my life,” Schwartz told the New Yorker. “There’s no righting it. But I like the idea that, the more copies that ‘The Art of the Deal’ sells, the more money I can donate to the people whose rights Trump seeks to abridge.”
Trump loves attention
Trump has a “completely compulsive” need for attention, according to Schwartz.
He told the New Yorker that Trump loves publicity so much, that he even enjoyed negative media attention. He recalled writing a story about Trump before agreeing to write “The Art of the Deal” that put one of Trump’s business dealings in a negative light. But Trump praised Schwartz’s piece.
“I was shocked,” Schwartz said. “Trump didn’t fit any model of human being I’d ever met. He was obsessed with publicity, and he didn’t care what you wrote.”
“Trump only takes two positions. Either you’re a scummy loser, liar, whatever, or you’re the greatest. I became the greatest. He wanted to be seen as a tough guy, and he loved being on the cover,” Schwartz continued.
Trump cannot focus
Trump’s short attention span made research for “The Art of the Deal” challenging, according to Schwartz. Trump did not like sitting for lengthy interviews or answering questions at all.
“It’s impossible to keep him focussed on any topic, other than his own self-aggrandizement, for more than a few minutes,” Schwartz said. “If he had to be briefed on a crisis in the Situation Room, it’s impossible to imagine him paying attention over a long period of time.”
Schwartz ultimately listened in on Trump’s many business calls for research.
“He loved the attention,” Schwartz said. “If he could have had three hundred thousand people listening in, he would have been even happier.”
Trump ‘lied strategically’
While listening to Trump’s phone calls, Schwartz learned that the real estate mogul was simply “playing people.”
“Lying is second nature to him,” Schwartz told the New Yorker. “More than anyone else I have ever met, Trump has the ability to convince himself that whatever he is saying at any given moment is true, or sort of true, or at least ought to be true.”
According to Schwartz, Trump lied about how much money he spent or earned on his real estate projects.
“He lied strategically. He had a complete lack of conscience about it,” he said.
Schwartz called it “truthful hyperbole” in “The Art of the Deal,” which he now regrets.
“I created a character far more winning than Trump actually is,” Schwartz said.
Scwartz told the New Yorker that if Trump wins the presidency, “the millions of people who voted for him and believe that he represents their interests will learn what anyone who deals closely with him already knows—that he couldn’t care less about them.”
In response to the New Yorker’s interview with Schwartz, Trump denied that Schwartz wrote the majority of the book.
“He didn’t write the book,” Trump told the New Yorker. “I wrote the book. I wrote the book. It was my book. And it was a No. 1 best-seller, and one of the best-selling business books of all time. Some say it was the best-selling business book ever.”
Trump also told Schwartz off for talking to the New Yorker.
“I just want to tell you that I think you’re very disloyal. Without me, you wouldn’t be where you are now,” Schwartz says Trump told him. “I had a lot of choice of who to have write the book, and I chose you, and I was very generous with you. I know that you gave a lot of speeches and lectures using ‘The Art of the Deal.’ I could have sued you, but I didn’t.”
Read the New Yorker’s full story on “The Art of the Deal” here.
