I don't know what I was expecting in reading this. Insight? Illumination? Some answers to the "how and why did this happen to America?" I'm not sure that I gained any from reading this self-aggrandizing and ghost written "memoir." check out Tony Schwartz's account:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

If I took away anything, I guess it is that Trump has always been Trump. The narcissistic, manipulative, avaricious, shameless, deceptive figure we know today was on full display the whole time.

Reads just like Trump. He could have written it yesterday. No change. Same philosophy of business and politics.

This is how Donald Trump made it into the business world. I always find it interesting to find out how successful people made their breakthrough.

Some snippets of wisdom I got from the book:

-"I always go into the deal anticipating the worst. If you plan for the worst-if you can live with the worst-the good will always take care of itself"

-"I also protect myself be being flexible. I never get too attached to one deal or one approach. I always come up with at least a half dozen approaches to making it work, because anything can happen, even to the best-laid plans."

-"The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you're dead"



Overall an interesting read and insight into the making of "The Donald".

I thought that this book was good

n  n

Intended as an exercise in empathy and getting a grasp on the cultural climate, but this book is hardly enlightening on the Trump of 2025.

If you are looking for a concrete explanation of this man, you will not find it here. While Mr. Trump writes eloquently of buildings that reach up for the stars, he says nothing substantive of his dreams or his nightmares. His inner life remains opaque to us. Defined by the baroque, Mr. Trump constructs a monument to himself in “Art of the Deal,” and like so many casinos and hotels, it offers little beyond its glossy mass-produced surface.

This book made me a socialist.

I have not read the book.

But then hey, Trump did not write it.

DONALD TRUMP’S GHOSTWRITER TELLS ALL

27/03/2017

Well, I guess he's not such a great deal-maker after all. The first chance he had to make one in the White House, he failed miserably.

Or maybe he's just a dealer?

04/08/2017

I am interested in what kind of "deal" he's going to make with North Korea.

25/01/2019

Opposing bills to end US shutdown fail in Senate, with no clear path forward

What's the deal now, Donny?

Disclaimer: This post is not intended to fish for political commentary. This is a book review of a book I read to completion. If you've read this book or have questions about it or this review, please feel free to comment. Otherwise, if this emboldens you to bash or praise Trump unrelated to this book, create your own Facebook post.

I finished Trump's first book "The Art of the Deal". For completeness, I am well aware that the ghost writer of the book, Tony Schwartz is a vocal critic/hater of Trump, and has been since he came out in 2016 during the primaries. Just as recent as yesterday, Schwartz said Trump is "incapable of reading a book, much less writing one." Just search Tony Schwartz on Google and you can revel in all that hatred if that makes you feel better. It doesn't change my book review. In fact, it complements it.

My book review is as follows: This is Trump's first book and it was published 31 years ago in 1987. This was when he was 41 years old and was merely Trump the real estate developer / businessman. I encourage both lovers and haters of Trump the President to give "The Art of the Deal" a read. I really enjoyed it. In some ways it read like my own fathers's autobiography and had a down to earth style to it, but in a billionaire sort of way. I'm sure there's a level of exaggeration and rose colored glasses used to retell the numerous deals the book covers, as you would find in most any "How I got Successful" business book.

The reason I encourage lovers and haters to read this is that there is something for everyone. For the lovers, he talks about the many successes he's had and how he's navigated complex deals involving unions, government, land owners, hotel owners, banks, architects, lawyers, etc. It's unbelievably complex - and interesting - especially in cities like NYC and Atlantic City. Somehow he had managed to pull several pretty big and interesting deals together and had accomplished a lot only 20 years into his career. There's also the story of how he rebuilt the ice rink at Central Park on time after the city failed for 6+ years to do so while wasting millions of dollars. The guy gets things done. There's no other way to explain his variety of significant accomplishments.

For haters, you will certainly find glimpses of the impulsive, direct, hardball playing capitalist you've come to despise. He also writes about some of his failures such as the USFL and the world's tallest building at Television City, though both projects still had life when the book published.

The reader will also learn a few things about his family. For example, I did not know Trump's uncle was an MIT PhD physicist who worked with Robert Van de Graaff and developed one of the first million-volt X-ray generators. I also didn't know Trump went to Wharton Business School. Last I heard, that was a pretty significant accomplishment. I didn't know his (now) ex-wife Ivana helped run his casino in Atlantic City.

The thing I like about the book and Trump at this age is that is gives a clue as to how he thinks. I know some people think he's so stupid he can't possibly be able to construct an actual thought. But if you read the book, I think you will believe otherwise. So whether Trump was the source of this book, or Tony Schwartz wrote it all himself, or whether the book is 50% true and 50% exaggeration, I think the excerpts I highlighted below will give you a taste of what's inside "The Art of the Deal".

After reading this, I am inclined to give a fair turn to "first books" of future politicians, even ones I may disagree with, provided they are writing pre-politics before they are trying to win votes. I think it would be very eye opening, if there ever exists such another candidate.

Here are some direct excerpts from the book. See how crazy and incompetent you think this guy is:


I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about what I should have done differently, or what’s going to happen next. If you ask me exactly what the deals I’m about to describe all add up to in the end, I’m not sure I have a very good answer. Except that I’ve had a very good time making them.

From as early as I can remember, my father would say to me, “The most important thing in life is to love what you’re doing, because that’s the only way you’ll ever be really good at it.”

Much the way it is today, people either liked me a lot, or they didn’t like me at all.

What I did, basically, was to convey that I respected his authority, but that he didn’t intimidate me. It was a delicate balance. Like so many strong guys, Dobias had a tendency to go for the jugular if he smelled weakness. On the other hand, if he sensed strength but you didn’t try to undermine him, he treated you like a man. From the time I figured that out—and it was more an instinct than a conscious thought—we got along great.

They were total opposites in that sense. My mother loves splendor and magnificence, while my father, who is very down-to-earth, gets excited only by competence and efficiency.

I learned something from that: it’s not how many hours you put in, it’s what you get done while you’re working.

The third thing I did, and probably the most important, was to sell myself to Victor and his people. I couldn’t sell him on my experience or my accomplishment, so instead I sold him on my energy and my enthusiasm.

I discovered, for the first time but not the last, that politicians don’t care too much what things cost. It’s not their money.

In the end, we won by wearing everyone else down. We never gave up, and the opposition slowly began to melt away.

I wasn’t naïve. I saw potential, but I also recognized a downside. I could envision a huge home run, but I also knew that failing could bury me. From the very first day I went to work on the deal, I tried to keep my risk to an absolute minimum, and financially, I succeeded. But as the months went by, the deal became more and more complicated and difficult. I kept investing more time and more energy, and the stakes rose for reasons unrelated to money. I could talk big for only so long. Eventually I had to prove—to the real estate community, to the press, to my father—that I could deliver the goods.

More time passed, and I wrote another letter, suggesting a whole new way to make the deal. I was relentless, even in the face of the total lack of encouragement, because much more often than you’d think, sheer persistence is the difference between success and failure.

It was not the sort of publicity you like to get. Looking back, I regret that I had the sculptures destroyed. I’m not convinced they were truly valuable, and I still think that a lot of my critics were phonies and hypocrites, but I understand now that certain events can take on a symbolic importance. Frankly, I was too young, and perhaps in too much of a hurry, to take that into account. The point is that despite what some people may think, I’m not looking to be a bad guy when it isn’t absolutely necessary.

But I’m a businessman, and I learned a lesson from that experience: good publicity is preferable to bad, but from a bottom-line perspective, bad publicity is sometimes better than no publicity at all. Controversy, in short, sells.

What’s unfortunate is that for decades now they have become wealthier in large measure by screwing the United States with a self-serving trade policy that our political leaders have never been able to fully understand or counteract.

In my view, however, that translated into an opportunity. The worst of times often create the best opportunities to make good deals.

When you’re negotiating with people who’ve been promised the world a half dozen times and gotten nothing, credibility is critical.

What I needed was someone totally competent, totally honest, and totally loyal to oversee the project. There is nothing to compare with family if they happen to be competent, because you can trust family in a way you can never trust anyone else.

I have a very simple rule when it comes to management: hire the best people from your competitors, pay them more than they were earning, and give them bonuses and incentives based on their performance. That’s how you build a first-class operation.

I recognize that lawsuits are sometimes inevitable, and I accept that as a reality of business. But when a person tells me he’s going to sit down with me, I expect him to honor that commitment. If we still can’t resolve the situation, that’s another story. From that day on I stopped defending Barron Hilton to anyone.

It pays to trust your instincts.

It was not one of my best experiences with the media, but it taught me something. You don’t act on an impulse—even a charitable one—unless you’ve considered the downside.

I also liked the idea of taking on the NFL, a smug, self-satisfied monopoly that I believed was highly vulnerable to an aggressive competitor.
To me, committees are what insecure people create in order to put off making hard decisions.

I was part of the problem. As a witness, I was well spoken and professional, I think—very much a contrast to Pete Rozelle. But that probably played into the NFL’s hands. From day one, the NFL painted me as a vicious, greedy, Machiavellian billionaire, intent only on serving my selfish ends at everyone else’s expense. “The USFL,” attorney Frank Rothman told the jury in his opening remarks, “is controlled and dominated by Donald Trump, who can buy and sell many of the owners in the NFL.”

I NEVER had a master plan. I just got fed up one day and decided to do something about it.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from dealing with politicians over the years, it’s that the only thing guaranteed to force them into action is the press—or, more specifically, fear of the press.

It irritates me that critics, who’ve neither designed nor built anything themselves, are given carte blanche to express their views in the pages of major publications, whereas the targets of their criticism are almost never offered space to respond. Of course, I can be irritated all I want and it won’t do any good. So long as a critic writes for a newspaper like the New York Times, his opinion will continue to carry great weight—whether I like it or not.

Koch has achieved something quite miraculous. He’s presided over an administration that is both pervasively corrupt and totally incompetent. Richard Daley, the former mayor of Chicago, managed to survive corruption scandals because at least he seemed able to operate his city efficiently.

As for the Koch appointees who managed to avoid criminal indictment, the scandal is their sheer incompetence. Many just lack talent. Others seem to have concluded that the safest approach to protecting their jobs is to stop making decisions of any kind; at least then they can’t be accused of breaking the law. The problem is that when officials in a huge city government stop making decisions, you get the bureaucratic equivalent of gridlock. Dishonesty is intolerable, but inaction and incompetence can be every bit as bad.

Providing jobs, in my view, is a far more constructive solution to unemployment than creating welfare programs.

I SAID AT THE START that I do it to do it. But in the end, you’re measured not by how much you undertake but by what you finally accomplish.

I’ve spent the first twenty years of my working life building, accumulating, and accomplishing things that many said could not be done. The biggest challenge I see over the next twenty years is to figure out some creative ways to give back some of what I’ve gotten. I don’t just mean money, although that’s part of it. It’s easy to be generous when you’ve got a lot, and anyone who does, should be. But what I admire most are people who put themselves directly on the line. I’ve never been terribly interested in why people give, because their motivation is rarely what it seems to be, and it’s almost never pure altruism. To me, what matters is the doing, and giving time is far more valuable than just giving money.

In my life, there are two things I’ve found I’m very good at: overcoming obstacles and motivating good people to do their best work. One of the challenges ahead is how to use those skills as successfully in the service of others as I’ve done, up to now, on my own behalf.

I have read a number of books about geniuses in various areas of life. (Nikoli Tesla, Steve Jobs, Einstein, Robert Moses, and others.)

I truly believe, when it comes to dealing making, Trump is a genius. This book was written in the 1980s and describes his ability to think about things, when doing deals, that other people do not think about.

I'm sure what this book covers, is only the beginning and a small part of his accomplishments.

I believe all citizens of the United States should read this book in order to get a better understanding of the person who will be our next president.

Look, Donald Trump on Donald Trump was never going to get a rave review from me. We all know this. But my gosh, this was probably one of the deadliest dull books I have ever read in my entire life. It's predictably boring in a way that defies even Fifty Shades of Grey to out-beige. I bet Trump thinks this is The Art of War for aspiring yuppies like Patrick Bateman, but it's really Mein Kampf for lazy, entitled trust fund babies.

The good news is that I have *plenty* of material on Trump as yuppie icon for the article on which I'm working.