Donald Trump in Never Enough, by Michael D'Antonio
On Health Care:
Criticizes immunizations for children, and other science
Trump is often ruled by the needy child who resides in his psyche and would rather get negative attention than be ignored. Of course Trump does profit financially as he gives this part of himself free rein,
and he has little patience for reflection or analysis. He just presses on, defying science with his criticism of immunizations for children and battling against the facts on climate change.
Trump has denied facts others accept and pushed the limits of propriety throughout his long and hyperactive life.
In his parents' home, at school, and in the worlds of business and politics, he has continually asserted his superiority with only the barest hint of doubt.
Source: Never Enough by M. D'Antonio, p. 4
Sep 22, 2015
On Welfare & Poverty:
OpEd:"dog-whistle" racist language links "welfare" & "black"
When he talked about welfare instead of race, Trump played to the prejudices of those who were inclined to think of assistance payments as handouts for undeserving black families. The linkage of the words "welfare" and "black" began in the 1950s.
Did Donald Trump know that as he complained about being forced to accept tenants on welfare he was using code--eventually this would be called dog-whistle language--to play on racial animus? He insisted that he never intended such a thing, and
complained that efforts to test the practices of real estate managers amounted to "a form of horrible harassment." But in choosing to fight the government and claiming the Feds were trying to force him to accept welfare clients, Trump did play on
stereotypes. When the case was settled, Trump agreed to a process that would make it much easier for minority applicants to move into his buildings. This type of agreement was all the federal prosecutors wanted when they first approached the Trumps.
Source: Never Enough by M. D'Antonio, p. 83-4
Sep 22, 2015
On Civil Rights:
OpEd: "bigotry" was more like racial insensitivity
In his public life in the 1970s, Trump had exhibited what might be called insensitivity rather than bigotry. None of his earlier comments and actions compared with his attacks on Obama as he questioned the president's admission to Harvard and Colombia
and repeatedly demanded proof of his birth in Hawaii, even after the proper record had been made public. For his part, Trump insisted that he was just asking questions about an issue that was, in his mind, unresolved.
This shred-of-doubt strategy required Trump to ignore a reliable record and insult the president, but he was not alone as he flailed away. The election and reelection of America's first black president caused some on the right to become so unhinged that
Source: Never Enough by M. D'Antonio, p.292
Sep 22, 2015
On Homeland Security:
Opposed gay marriage but supported gays serving in military
Trump's effort at capturing the public's attention has produced a trail of public statements that would fill many thousands of scrapbook pages. Over time he has been quoted so widely on such a variety of topics that anyone who sought to keep track
would feel overwhelmed. Over the years Trump has been opposed to gay marriage and in favor of gays serving in the military. He has supported abortion rights and then opposed them.
Source: Never Enough by M. D'Antonio, p.324-5
Sep 22, 2015
On Health Care:
Shifted from favoring universal care to opposing ObamaCare
Trump's tough-guy statements communicated the feeling of plain-spoken English but were more like the deliberate double-speak of carnival barkers.
In fact, his message was so convoluted that listeners would have to fill in much of the meaning themselves. How, for example, would he bill Mexico for a border fence?
This didn't seem to matter to him. Also, it didn't seem to matter to Trump that he has changed his mind on abortion rights, moving from being "very pro-choice" to "very pro-life." Nor did it matter to him that he had shifted from favoring
universal health care to opposing health-care reform under President Obama. What did matter to him was his own belief in the natural abilities handed down to him by his German and Scottish forbearers.
Source: Never Enough by M. D'Antonio, p.345-6
Sep 22, 2015
On Foreign Policy:
Offered himself as Cold War nuclear-arms-treaty negotiator
[In the 1980s], flying from place to place in his Trump helicopter and Trump jet, he offered opinions on everything from politics to sex, and continually declared himself to be superior in every way.
He frequently referred to the many people who thought he should run for president and sometimes acted as if he were a real candidate.
During one especially tense Cold War moment, he even offered himself to the world as a nuclear-arms-treaty negotiator.
His reasoning? A man who can make high-end real estate deals should be able to bring the United States and the Soviet Union into agreement.
Source: Never Enough, by Michael D`Antonio, p. 10
Sep 22, 2015
On Homeland Security:
1965: opposed Vietnam War but never joined protests
As the Vietnam War had dragged on, Trump's generation of young men had joined the armed services at a rate of more than 1 million per year. Students at the University of Pennsylvania [where Trump was a student] were not so restive.
However, in 1965 more than a thousand students attended an antiwar "teach- in."In 1968, Donald Trump's last year at Penn, a small group occupied a building and drove away recruiters for the Central Intelligence Agency.
Donald Trump did not join in the protests, sign petitions, or otherwise agitate the power of the "establishment."
Although he personally opposed the war, Trump would later say he was so intently focused on his future in business
that he was not even aware of the campus protests. In light of Trump's political disengagement, you might conclude that he was more like a college man of the fifties than the sixties.
Source: Never Enough, by Michael D`Antonio, p. 68-9
Sep 22, 2015
On Homeland Security:
1969: Drew high draft lottery number, and never got drafted
In Dec. 1969, draft priority based on a random drawing of birth dates gave him number 356. No one with a number higher than 195 was ever called to serve."I actually got lucky because I had a very high draft number," he would tell a TV interviewer in
2011. "I'll never forget, that was an amazing period of time in my life." In fact the lottery was not a factor in his experience. It didn't occur until fourteen months after he received his medical exemption, and eighteen months after he'd left Penn.
Nevertheless he would recall, "I was going to the Wharton School of Finance, and I was watching as they did the draft numbers." When the subject came up in conversation in 2014, he repeated the draft number story. But when offered the chance to work
through the details, he seized it. Yes, he agreed, if the first lottery took place in 1969, he must have been mistaken about living in Philadelphia. And the gap between his graduation from Penn and the lottery could be explained by a medical deferment.
Source: Never Enough, by Michael D`Antonio, p. 70
Sep 22, 2015
On Homeland Security:
Vietnam war was mistake; I'm grateful that I stayed civilian
[On the Vietnam draft], after his graduation from Penn [he received a] medical deferment. Trump slipped off his black loafer & pointed to his heel, where a little bulge pushed against his sock. "Heel spurs," he explained. "On both feet." The deformities
qualified a would-be draftee for a medical deferment. Unlike others who dealt with the same question as public figures, Trump wasn't defensive about never having served. The war "was a mistake" he said, and he was grateful to have remained a civilian.
Source: Never Enough, by Michael D`Antonio, p. 70
Sep 22, 2015
On Budget & Economy:
Sought NYC deal with $4M property tax break
Trump was partial to sharp angles, shiny surfaces, and uncluttered design, he admired One Astor Plaza's sleek functionality. The key to the whole shiny project would be a big tax break, which Trump first tried to win from the state government in Albany.
When this approach failed, Trump turned to the city bureaucracy, where development officials helped him with a cleverly engineered scheme. Under this plan, the state's Urban Development Corporation would actually own the hotel and lease it to Trump.
The agency, which was tax exempt, could keep the property off the city assessment rolls. Trump and Hyatt would save more than $4 million per year.
This truth wasn't lost on other hoteliers. President of the Americana Hotel, complained that the deal was "immoral and unfair." Harry Helmsley wondered aloud whether "maybe too much is being given" to the Trumps.
Source: Never Enough, by Michael D`Antonio, p.103
Sep 22, 2015
On Principles & Values:
A germophobe: constantly washes hands; dislikes handshakes
When Trump turned to the subject of fame and its effects, he wrote from a unique perspective. Fame, which was part of his business plan, had contributed substantially to his successes even as it exacted a price. Trump: Surviving at the Top
was filled with firsthand reports on the bizarre behavior of fame-addled celebrities. Trump devoted a full page to Howard Hughes. Like Donald, Hughes was linked to many beautiful women and operated a gambling business.
He was also famously germophobic, a trait that Trump confessed he too possessed. "I'm constantly washing my hands, and it wouldn't bother me if I never had to shake hands with a well- meaning stranger again."
Trump's seemingly frank statements about
his contamination anxiety--gave the impression of a man who was willing to reveal himself. But all he copped to were a few missteps and quirks and forgivable sins such as working too hard.
Source: Never Enough, by Michael D`Antonio, p.217-8
Sep 22, 2015
On Jobs:
Opposed to casinos on Indian reservations
This man reflexively put his own interests first. How else could one explain his effort to overturn a law that allowed impoverished Indian tribes to operate casinos?
His suit alleged that he was the victim of unlawful discrimination because, like laws granting special tax breaks for developers, the Indian gaming law benefited only a "very limited class of citizens."
In 1993 he got into a shouting match at a congressional hearing as he insisted that tribal casinos were courting "the biggest scandal since Al Capone. Organized crime is rampant on Indian reservations. People know it; people talk about it.
It's going to blow." Trump also said of the tribal representatives at the meeting, "They don't look like Indians to me, and they don't look like Indians to Indians." After the hearing an Indian leader accused Trump of "economic racism."
Source: Never Enough, by Michael D`Antonio, p.229-30
Sep 22, 2015
On Tax Reform:
OpEd: One-time wealth tax could cause stock market collapse
Political veterans such as Dick Morris observed that Trump was publishing a new book, The America We Deserve, which might get a boost in sales from the author/candidate's appearances on
TV talk shows such as "Larry King Live" (CNN), "The Early Show" (CBS), and the "Tonight" show (NBC), which invited him to talk politics.
Many of his ideas were dismissed as unworkable. For example, a onetime tax on the rich was labeled "harebrained" by economist and securities analyst David Jones, who said it could cause a stock-market collapse.
(A former IRS commissioner called it "wacky, constitutionally.") A few of Trump's proposals did show he was both forward-looking and ideologically flexible.
Source: Never Enough, by Michael D`Antonio, p.250
Sep 22, 2015
On Homeland Security:
Bush should have caught Osama bin Laden
Trump said that his presidential flirtation "doesn't compare with completing one of the great skyscrapers of Manhattan," but he wouldn't rule out a reprise in 2004. That year he did stay on the sidelines, but he occasionally heckled
President Bush for his economic policy, and the war in Iraq, which Trump doubted would produce a stable democracy. The war had been the centerpiece of Bush's response to the attacks on America by the Islamic terror group al- Qaeda on September 11, 2001.
Trump said that if he were president, Osama bin Laden, who led the terrorist group and remained at large, "would have been caught long ago."
Trump's comments about Bush and bin Laden were published in July 2004 by "Esquire" magazine and repeated by the press across the country.
Source: Never Enough, by Michael D`Antonio, p.252
Sep 22, 2015
On Principles & Values:
2011: Obama's birth certificate is hiding something
Although rabid birthers and Tea Party activists (often one and the same) represented a minority in the GOP, what they lacked in numbers they made up in zeal.Donald Trump followed his CPAC performance with a birther blitz on
Fox News, telling the audience of Bill O' Reilly's nighttime program that he had once believed that Obama had been born in Hawaii but added, "I've seen too many things" and "come to have doubts."
Under tough questioning from O' Reilly, who had dismissed the birther claims, Trump allowed that perhaps the president had a US birth certificate.
But he added, "Now he may have one, but there is something on that birth certificate--maybe religion, maybe he says he's a Muslim, I don't know."
Source: Never Enough, by Michael D`Antonio, p.287
Sep 22, 2015
On Principles & Values:
Birtherism: demanded that Obama produce birth certificate
Trump upped the ante on the birther issue, saying, "I have investigators in Hawaii; They cannot believe what they're finding." In the midst of the birther frenzy, as Trump and others demanded Obama make public his birth certificate, TV hosts
occasionally mentioned that Obama's "certificate of live birth" had been made public in 2008 and Hawaii state officials had repeatedly affirmed that he was born there. Despite this official documentary proof, Trump talked as if facts were being withheld.
Source: Never Enough, by Michael D`Antonio, p.288
Sep 22, 2015
On Principles & Values:
OpEd: Obama's grandmother never said he was born in Kenya
[After a TV appearance where he questioned Obama's birth certificate], Trump talked as if facts were being withheld. In none of his statements did Trump offer any reliable sources, and in one case he seemed to ignore the actual record. This happened
when he announced, "His grandmother in Kenya said, 'Oh, no, he was born in Kenya, and I was there and I witnessed the birth.' Now, she's on tape and I think the tape's going to be produced fairly soon."Already public, the tape in question was a
recorded telephone interview with Obama's stepmother, Sarah, who was in Kenya. Sarah spoke Swahili. The interviewer was an English-speaking preacher named Ron McRae.
The interview finds McRae saying "Was he born in Mombasa?" In response the translator
says, "No. Obama was not born in Mombasa. He was born in America." McRae pressed Sarah on the issue, and the translator, after asking the question and waiting for the answer, replied, "Hawaii. She says he was born in Hawaii."
Source: Never Enough, by Michael D`Antonio, p.288-9
Sep 22, 2015
On Energy & Oil:
Wind energy projects are industrial monstrosities
As earthmoving machines broke the land to create the first of Trump's two planned golf courses, the housing market in Scotland and the rest of Europe remained weak.
Trump continued to complain about the wind-energy project planned for the waters just offshore. The British government was committed to the idea, and Scottish first minister Salmond had worked hard to get the
European Union's approval for a wind- energy test field in the North Sea waters. Trump said that Salmond had assured him the windmills would not be built. He insisted that he was fighting not just for himself, but
for the country, because windmills were a bad technology. "We have to save Scotland," he declared. "You cannot allow these industrial monstrosities sustained with government subsidy."
Source: Never Enough, by Michael D`Antonio, p.318
Sep 22, 2015
On Health Care:
Ebola virus in America is Obama's fault
Trump could bypass the gatekeepers in the press to reach people directly with his messages. Trump said he did own writing online, and given the wide range of tones in his comments, this seemed true. A devoted tweeter, his online statements address
everything from a doctor in New York with the Ebola virus--"Obama's fault"--to the notion that the Big Apple could actually benefit from global warming, if the phenomenon is real, because it suffers from uncomfortable cold snaps in the winter.
Source: Never Enough, by Michael D`Antonio, p.331
Sep 22, 2015
On Welfare & Poverty:
Sought to exclude welfare recipients from his residences
Where Trump and the Feds disagree, he said, was on the landlord's standards for approving or rejecting a tenant. The government's lawyers, acting on claims of would-be renters, said that black applicants with the same financial qualifications as whites
who were given leases had been turned away. Donald Trump insisted this was not true and that his company only sought to exclude welfare recipients, who, he feared, would not pay rent and move out in "one or two months."
Trump said that the settlement by the LeFrak Organization [another city landlord] required that LeFrak rent to applicants on welfare, and that if Trump agreed to the same type of settlement, tenants would flee his buildings and entire "communities as
a whole." Although LeFrak tried to dispute this description of the arrangement, Trump was in fact correct. LeFrak had agreed that applicants who were not working but received enough in welfare to pay their rent could live in his buildings.
Source: Never Enough, by Michael D'Antonio, p. 80
Sep 22, 2015
On Drugs:
1991: Illicit drugs should be decriminalized
[In 1991], Trump traveled to Capitol Hill to tell a congressional committee that he thought they should raise taxes on the rich. Reagan tax cuts should be abandoned, he said; a top rate of 50% or 60% would be better for the country.
Coupled with a previous statement suggesting that illicit drugs should be decriminalized, Trump's tax comments placed him left of center on the political spectrum, but they gained him little press coverage.
Source: Never Enough, by Michael D'Antonio, p. 222
Sep 22, 2015
On Crime:
1989 full-page newspaper ads: "Bring Back the Death Penalty"
In April 1989, Trump saw an opportunity to speak his mind when a young white woman was raped and beaten while out for a jog in Central Park. As media reports shocked the city and the victim struggled for survival, police mounted an intense investigation
that ended with the apprehension of five black youths between the ages of 14 and 16. The five implicated themselves under interrogation, but would later recant, saying they had been pressured into making false statements.
Donald Trump bought full-page advertisements in the city's four big daily papers to proclaim BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE!Although he avoided naming the accused in the jogger case,
Trump's reference to "roving bands of wild criminals" left no doubt about why he had paid for the ads. Newspaper accounts had described "wolf pack" gangs marauding in the park.
Source: Never Enough, by Michael D'Antonio, p.192
Sep 22, 2015
On Civil Rights:
Well-educated blacks have advantage over whites
Trump favored a stubbornly anti-intellectual type of common sense that played to the grievances of the kind of white men represented by the TV character Archie Bunker, who, like Trump, came from Queens and offered his opinions with chin-jutting pride.
Donald displayed his inner Archie in 1989 when he told a TV interviewer, "a well-educated black has a tremendous advantage over a well-educated white in terms of the job market. I've said, even about myself, if I were starting off today,
I would love to be a well-educated black because I believe they have an actual advantage." In the universe of "well-educated black" men, some HAD gained from affirmative action programs, but only the most superficial view of the landscape would lead
someone to agree with Trump. On the same TV program, filmmaker Spike Lee called Trump's statement "garbage" because it reeked of racial ignorance. But it sounded like tell-it-like-it-is honesty to many.
Source: Never Enough, by Michael D'Antonio, p.193
Sep 22, 2015
On Health Care:
Stockpile treatments against future pandemics & bioterrorism
A few of Trump's proposals in his 2000 book "The America We Deserve" did show he was both forward-looking and ideologically flexible.
Among them was a project to develop and stockpile treatments in anticipation of future pandemics or the release of biological agents by terrorists.
Source: Never Enough, by Michael D'Antonio, p.250
Sep 22, 2015
On Energy & Oil:
Offered to oversee response to 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill
When Trump spoke about Obama, he sounded personally irritated, which may have been because the White House had ignored his offer to lead the federal response to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill because the admiral in charge "doesn't know what he's
doing." Unfortunately Obama's former senior adviser David Axelrod had revealed this exchange, and Trump's offer to build a ballroom at the White House, after Donald stopped speaking to me, which made it impossible to follow up on it with him.
Source: Politico.com article with Trump's "Never Enough" biographer
Sep 25, 2015
On Principles & Values:
OpEd: Obama doesn't have the psychology of a winner
Trump is generally disgusted by President Barack Obama, whom he regards as weak. In our meetings Trump often filled pauses with criticisms of Obama. Often these statements came during walks to the elevator, when the audio recorders were switched off,
or they were couched as "off the record."In two instances when he spoke on the record, Trump veered from a general discussion of "success" to an evaluation of the president. In the first case he said Obama lacked the qualities of a winner and "has
had so many losses and people don't even want to watch him on television." In the second he said the president was not psychologically tough. "It's all psychology.
If Obama had that psychology, Russia's Vladimir Putin wouldn't be eating his lunch. He doesn't have that psychology and he never will because it's not in his DNA."
Source: Politico.com article with Trump's "Never Enough" biographer
Sep 25, 2015
On Principles & Values:
OpEd: Lifelong dance of mutual manipulation with the press
Although Trump's attitude toward Obama was tinged with emotion, he was far more caustic in his remarks about the fourth estate. "There is tremendous dishonesty, tremendous dishonesty, in the press," he volunteered, naming prominent Trump critics as chief
offenders. Trump's most venomous words are reserved for the editor of Vanity Fair, whom he calls "scumbag Graydon Carter." Trump will mention the man many times, always saying the phrase in a hurry as if it were a single, indivisible
word: "Scumbagraydoncarter."Considering his lifelong dance of mutual manipulation with the press, Trump's complaints are more than a little ironic. Few have profited more from the tide of celebrity news that has swamped the public discourse.
His analysis is also entirely self-referential. When the writer Timothy O`Brien said Trump wasn't as wealthy as he claimed, Trump sued. He lost, but considering the costs incurred, O`Brien's publisher lost too.
Source: Politico.com article with Trump's "Never Enough" biographer
Sep 25, 2015
On Principles & Values:
Sent to military academy because of childhood rebelliousness
Q: Your high school experience? "I went to New York Military Academy for five years, from the year before freshman."Q: "So eighth grade on?"
A: "Yes."
Q: "Whose idea was this?"
A: "Well, I was very rebellious and my parents thought it would
be a good idea. I was very rebellious."
Q: "How did it evidence itself?"
A: "I was a very rebellious kind of person. I don't like to talk about it, actually. But I was a very rebellious person and very set in my ways."
Q: "In eighth grade?"
A: "I loved to fight. I always loved to fight."
Q: "Physical fights?"
A: "All types of fights. Any kind of fight, I loved it, including physical, and
I was always the best athlete. Something that nobody knew about me."
Source: Politico.com article with Trump's "Never Enough" biographer
Sep 25, 2015
On Principles & Values:
People want positive inspiration
[Trump has sued some writers, but with regards to Michael D'Antonio, the author of this unauthorized biography], Trump doubts we'll be meeting in court: "It'll probably be a bad book and I'll regret doing it.
But, OK, I could sue you if it's bad, but I won't bother because the book won't sell. People want positive, inspiring. That's what you should write if you want a success."
Source: Politico.com article with Trump's "Never Enough" biographer
Sep 25, 2015
On Principles & Values:
I've always been rebellious and very set in my ways
I was a very rebellious kind of person when I was younger. I don't like to talk about it, actually. But I was a very rebellious person and very set in my ways, evidenced by the fact that I always loved to engage in any type of fight or athletic
competition. In fact, I was so rebellious that my parents thought it would be a good idea for me to go to New York Military Academy for five years, starting in eighth grade.
Source: Politico.com article with Trump's "Never Enough" biographer
Sep 25, 2015
Page last updated: Jun 22, 2020