Confidence Man

 

Maggie Haberman, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and The Breaking of America,” Random House (Large Print), 2022, 769 pp..

Probably no reporter exceeds Maggie Haberman’s knowledge of just what make Trump tick.  She interviewed hundreds of sources over the years as well as Trump personally. 

The through-line of Trump's life and his presidency is the enduring question of what is in it for him or what he needs to say to survive short increments of time in the pursuit of his own interests. Confidence Man is also about a series of relentlessly transactional relationships. The ones that shaped him most were with girlfriends and wives, with Roy Cohn, with George Steinbrenner, with Mike Tyson and Don King and Roger Stone, with city and state politicians like Robert Morgenthau and Rudy Giuliani, with business partners, with prosecutors, with the media, and with the employees who toiled inside what they commonly called amongst themselves the "Trump Disorganization."  That world informed the one that Trump tried to recreate while in the White House.

Author Maggie Haberman is a journalist who joined The New York Times in 2015 and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for reporting on the investigations into Donald Trump's, and his advisers', connections to Russia. She has twice been a member of a team that was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize, in 2021 for reporting on the Trump administration's response to the coronavirus, and in 2022 for coverage related to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol. Before joining The New York Times as a campaign correspondent, she worked as a political reporter at Politico, from 2010 to 2015. She previously worked at The New York Post and The New York Daily News.

My Notes:

Pg. 49:  A central lesson Trump took from his mentor Roy Cohn was that literally everything could be treated as a transaction.  Even an attorney could be transformed into something akin to a machine boss or a Mafia don.  A person’s worth would be determined by whether they were liked or what they owed you,

Pg. 172:  In August 1990 the WSJ reported that Trump had a negative net worth of as much as $294 million.  His chief financial officer negotiated with the banks to keep Trump afloat: Trump was put on an allowance.  This was also the period of time when he was splitting with Ivana.

Pg. 175:  In 1991 Donald Trump tried to get his Father, Fred, to sign a codicil to his will that would strengthen Donald’s position as the sole executor of the estate and protect his inheritance from creditors.  Fred didn’t like this and drafted a new will that removed Donald as sole executor.

Pg. 177:  In 1995 Trump reported $916 million in personal losses which cleared the way for him to write off more than $50 million in taxes each year over the following two decades. In July 1991 Trump filed for corporate bankruptcy for the first time.  Ultimately all his casinos were placed in structured bankruptcies.

Pg. 234:  The Apprentice debuted in January 2004 and quickly dominated television.  Trump realized over $400 million in eventual residuals, salaries, and licensing deals. (Amazingly, I never saw any of his shows).

Pg. 243:  On January 22, 2005, Trump married Melania.  

Pg. 257:  By the late 2000s Trump was coming out with his fifteenth book.  He was repackaging similar business advice under interchangeable titles and subtitles such as Trump: How to Get Rich.

Pg. 348:  In the large Republican Primary field, Trump’s ability to generate press coverage out of nothing—by perpetually talking about everything, issuing provocations, and creating conflict, then making a story out of the coverage itself by turning on the media—had served him well: every time Trump was in the spotlight it meant no other candidate was. 

Pg. 595:  By the middle of 2019, Trump had seen more of his original cabinet depart than any of the five presidents who had immediately preceded him.  He was on his third press secretary, third chief of staff, and sixth communications director.

Pg. 612:  Trump picked a recent college athlete Johnny McEntee to evaluate presidential personnel appointments.  McEntee prepared loyalty questionnaires that asked staff to report any times they had remarked on Trump to media alongside questions such a “What political commentator, thinker or politician best reflects your views?”

Pg. 708:  Trump raised more than $200 million over three weeks following the election on the pretense of combating voter fraud.  Ultimately Trump’s legal team filed sixty-five different postelection lawsuits in state and federal cours and lost sixty-four of them. 

Pg. 729:  ”Big protest in D.C. on January 6.  Be there, will be wild!”  Trump also told Aides that he wanted National Guard troops present to protect his supporters from what he insisted would be Antifa counter protesters. 

Pg. 734:  On January 6^th more than two thousand people entered the Capitol.  Trump spent 187 minutes watching the debacle on TV.