← The New Yorker Radio Hour
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Special Preview: Trump’s Remorseful Ghostwriter
00:24:05
Tony Schwartz spent more than a year with Trump back in 1986, ghostwriting his memoir. He hasn’t ever talked publicly about the experience of working with Trump—until now.
Loading summary
Transcript49 lines
- [00:06]
Tony Schwartz
This is a special preview from the New Yorker Radio Hour. The complete story will be part of our July 22 episode.
- [00:13]
Narrator
When Donald Trump announced his candidacy last year, one of the qualifications he listed was his best selling book, the Art of the Deal.
- [00:21]
Tony Schwartz
Our country needs a truly great leader.
- [00:28]
Jane Mayer
We need.
- [00:31]
Tony Schwartz
A leader that wrote the Art of the Deal.
- [00:35]
Narrator
Part memoir, part business advice book, and 100% self promotion, the Art of the Deal presented Trump as a genius negotiator and businessman. Trump didn't exactly write the book, but he goes around claiming that he did, at least according to the co author or the ghost writer, Tony Schwartz. Schwartz spent over a year with Trump back in 1986 and he's never publicly talked about the process of writing it until now. And he's full of regret. He spoke with the New Yorker's Jane Mayer from his home in Riverdale, New York.
- [01:08]
Jane Mayer
So, Tony, you've got some amazing insights into Donald Trump from having written the Art of the Deal. Some are really quite revelatory. But you've kept your silence on this subject for almost 30 years. Why did you decide to speak up now?
- [01:28]
Tony Schwartz
It didn't feel important to me to say anything about Trump during the period that he was simply a real estate developer. And indeed, we'd had a very good and successful experience together writing the book 30 years ago. But when he decided to run for President of the United States, it was something else altogether. And it made me feel that I needed to share what I knew with the public as widely as I could because I believed he was so ill suited and dangerous as a potential president.
- [02:00]
Jane Mayer
Well, you know, I guess, Tony, I should go back and get a little bit of the story about how you got into this project in the first place and how you came to observe him so closely. Did you know Donald Trump back in the 80s or where did this, how did this all get going?
- [02:20]
Tony Schwartz
I was a staff writer at New York magazine in the 80s and I was constantly on the lookout for interesting stories. Donald Trump was just emerging as a significant figure in New York, wasn't known much beyond New York, but he was associated most of all with building Trump Tower, which has been finished a reasonably short time before. I became aware of him and I discovered, and I no longer remember how, that he was also the owner of a building on a Central Park South 100 Central Park south, overlooking Central park, that in the way that many buildings were at the time, was filled with tenants who were under rent control or rent stabilization. So they paid very low rents. And Donald Trump wanted to convert that into a luxury condominium. And he hired a notorious company called Urban Relocation to help get the tenants out. And those companies typically would use a whole range of tactics. They would break the lights, they would let the elevator not run. They would sometimes put very unseemly people into apartments. And I wrote a story called the Cold War on 100 Central Park south, another kind of Donald Trump story, something like that. And it was really about this attempt that actually hadn't been very successful, but this attempt to move all those tenants out of the building. That's how I met him. And the actual article that ran, the COVID article that ran in New York magazine pictured Trump as a. In an illustration as kind of a thug, sweating, you know, unshaven, just looking like a thug. And he loved it.
- [04:06]
Jane Mayer
What was it you think, in looking back that made him like the piece?
- [04:11]
Tony Schwartz
Well, I think it was one of the very first times, maybe even the first time that he'd been on the COVID of a magazine. And he had and has an insatiable thirst for attention. So I think he loved that. I think the second thing is, and I had no way of anticipating this particularly, but he loved the image of himself as a thug. He lied. He wants to be the tough guy, and this article made him into the tough guy.
- [04:37]
Jane Mayer
So was. Was it the end? Obviously not. What happened next?
- [04:41]
Tony Schwartz
Well, about a year later, I got an assignment from Playboy magazine to do the. What's called the Playboy interview, which is a long and at that time, pretty prestigious interview. And what the wonderful thing about it was, you know, you could. Went on for thousands and thousands of words, so you could really get a picture of a human being if you did a reasonably good job interviewing. So I went to Trump Tower knowing that he liked me, you know, more or less based on the piece I'd written. And I started to ask him questions, and the answers he gave me were so brief and cryptic that I, after about the fifth or sixth question, I said, listen, this is just an interview in which the piece depends entirely on what you say. So if you don't say much, there isn't going to be an interview. I can't do this without you. And he said, yeah, yeah, I know, but I've just been signed up to do a book. Si Newhouse, the, you know, the owner of Random House at that time, came to see me and personally signed me up to do a book. So I really don't want to give away what it is I'm going to put into the book.
- [05:46]
Jane Mayer
So what did you do?
- [05:48]
Tony Schwartz
I was kind of Surprised by that. I was trying to think to myself, this guy's 38 years old, he hasn't done very much, so, you know, what kind of book is he going to write? So I asked him, you know, well, what's the book? And he said, well, it's my autobiography. And I said, well, you don't have an autobiography really yet. And he said, yeah, yeah, I know, but, you know, I got a good deal and I'm going to do it. And I said spontaneously and without any thought, you know, if I were you and you're going to write a book, I'd write a book called the Art of the Deal. Because I think people really do believe that this is a big era of deals, the 80s. And I think people really do believe that you have some, you know, knowledge, at least the people who are aware of you, some knowledge of expertise around deals.
- [06:34]
Jane Mayer
And did he have any reaction?
- [06:37]
Tony Schwartz
He said, that's a really good idea. Do you want to write the book?
- [06:40]
Jane Mayer
Right on the spot?
- [06:42]
Tony Schwartz
Right on the spot. That's. That is quintessential Trump. He's not going to spend a long time reflecting on that or anything else. So that was his spontaneous response.
- [06:54]
Jane Mayer
So was that a hard decision for you to make at the time? Whether to say, you know, it was.
- [06:59]
Tony Schwartz
Absolutely a hard decision to make. And it's pretty obvious what the, what the two sides were. On one side, if I did it, there was an opportunity to potentially make a lot more money than I had ever made. And it was at a time when my second child was just about to be born. I was living in an apartment in New York with a mortgage that my wife and I couldn't afford. And I was very worried about money. So that was the lure. The cost, which was equally obvious to me, was this is not a guy I particularly want to align with. I don't share his values. And it'll probably end up that I will get criticized by my peers in journalism and I'll feel, you know, worse about myself as a journalist and maybe even undermine my credibility once I finish.
- [07:54]
Jane Mayer
Well, so how did you come down with an answer on what to do?
- [07:58]
Tony Schwartz
You know, I came to a fork in the road and I took it. I mean, it really was, it really was in many ways, some of them unexpected, a kind of life changing decision to go ahead and do it. I did it for the money. I mean, there's no other way of putting it, Jane. I did it for the money. I didn't think it was particularly consequential one way or the other. This was just a modest size, very brassy real estate developer. And that was pretty much the net of why I decided to do it.
- [08:32]
Jane Mayer
Well, so how we've talked about this before, you expected that in a number of interviews over Saturday mornings in his apartment at Trump Tower, you would sort of get this information from him. But I gather it didn't go the way you expected, is that right?
- [08:54]
Tony Schwartz
Well, I knew that it was possible that he might not provide as much information as I needed. I didn't begin to imagine how little that might turn out to be. So the very first day I went to see him on this agreed upon Saturday morning slot where I would spend a couple hours with him. That was the intention. You know, again, I got three or four questions or 10 questions into the interviewing process. And I could see him getting restless and rolling his eyes and being distracted and being kind of petulant and, you know, shortening his answers. And, you know, in less than an hour, he had said to me, maybe even less than 30 minutes, he'd said, you know, boy, this is a lot of questions. I mean, do we really have to talk about all this stuff? And I said, yeah, we do. And we have to actually spend a lot of time doing this. 300 pages, which is sort of the target for the book, is a lot of space to fill and I can't make it up.
- [10:00]
Jane Mayer
Well, so what happened next? How did you. Did you keep trying? And if he was not that forthcoming, why do you think that and what does it show people about him?
- [10:12]
Tony Schwartz
Well, it's not that he was private or, you know, purposely not telling me things or at least I don't believe that's the case. It was that he just was bored and distracted. So what it's telling you is this is a person who, even when it comes to talking about events from his life, had a really hard time keeping his focus on doing that. He wanted the next sensation, the next distraction, the next source of pleasure. And retelling the story of what happened when he was young didn't fit that bill for him. So it was like pulling teeth week in and week out, and very frustrating.
- [10:59]
Jane Mayer
So how did you manage? Because you did eventually produce what became a giant bestseller of a book. So what did you you do?
- [11:09]
Tony Schwartz
It dawned on me that the way I might be able to get this book done was to go to his office and listen in on his calls, assuming he would give me permission, because he. I knew he spent almost the entire day on the phone at work. And I also knew that what else would he be talking about on those calls, but his deals. So I proposed that to him the next week. And what it meant was I would come in every day and I would sit down, you know, right around the time he got there, I mean, maybe a little bit after him, and I'd sit down on an extension 8ft away from his desk or so, and I just listen with a notebook and I take notes. And he was fine about my doing that because it didn't require any effort on his behalf.
- [11:56]
Jane Mayer
Did he maybe feel a little bit that, you know, his privacy was being invaded?
- [12:02]
Tony Schwartz
That's such a great question, because, no, I don't think he has any privacy. I mean, you know, I don't think he wants people following him into restrooms. But short of that, I think he's a man who lives as public a life as you could imagine. I think his private life is his public life and vice versa. So I can't remember a single time during the many, many months that I was sitting there on the phone, day in and day out, when he said to me, tony, this is a private one. Would you mind leaving the room?
- [12:29]
Jane Mayer
Now, when we've talked before, you said that as the process of then reporting the book out beyond these phone calls became complicated, though, right? I mean, because when you tried to check out sort of the details of the stories that he told you, not all of them checked out. What happened and how did you handle that?
- [12:49]
Tony Schwartz
Well, I had agreed with Donald, and he had set it up to make it possible for me that when I was listening to these calls, and it would be about a deal, if there was a banker involved or there was another broker involved or whatever, that I could go and interview that person to fill in details, which was actually going to be a critical way that I would be able to write the book. So I'd be writing the book in his voice, but actually I'd have to create that voice from a blend of what he said, what other people said, whatever I could bring to it. And so I went and started doing those interviews. And frequently what would happen is I would walk through what I understood of the deal from Donald's perspective up to that point. And, you know, at some point, those people would smile or shrug or roll their eyes, and their description of how it happened would often be quite different than his.
- [13:50]
Jane Mayer
Well, a lot of people probably aggrandize themselves in their memoirs. Does he do this on some kind of different level? Why is this such a concern?
- [14:01]
Tony Schwartz
Well, because there were enough times where we were simply talking about facts, where somebody could point me to a fact that directly contradicted something he had said. So, in effect, there's no better way to put it, he was lying. And what I came to understand is that there wasn't really any distinction for him between the truth and falsehood. All there was was what story will serve me best, what story will, in fact, most aggrandize me, and that's the one I'm going to tell. And so for him, lying was second nature.
- [14:39]
Jane Mayer
You know, there's a phrase when I was talking to you that you said more than any other, that in a way you regret from the book, which was a phrase where you have Donald Trump in his voice saying that what he likes to use is something he calls truthful hyperbole. Why is that such a problem for someone running for president?
- [15:01]
Tony Schwartz
No, that's a problem for anybody. Truthful hyperbole is a phrase that I came up with as a way of trying to reconcile the fact that he wanted to say things in a certain way, and in some cases, I knew they weren't true. And the words truthful hyperbole were a way to kind of bridge that gap. And the reason it's not okay is because it is simply another way of saying, I'll say what I want to say because it serves me, but it isn't necessarily true. It's putting a fine gloss on it. It's rationalizing it. It's making it seem kind of almost funny and harmless.
- [15:52]
Jane Mayer
The book opens with kind of a lot of verve, and you have Donald Trump saying, I don't do it for the money. I've got enough, much more than I'll ever need. I do it to do it. Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That's how I get my kicks. So when you look back on that, is it really true that money is not a factor for him?
- [16:22]
Tony Schwartz
Well, first of all, I completely made it up. He didn't say any of those things to me. I mean, I was very much in his head and knew his voice. So I think it gives a very accurate feel for the way he speaks. But in terms of the substance of it, this is a perfect example of putting lipstick on the pig. I mean, a pig is greedy and avaricious. And I have him start out by saying, I don't do it for the money, which is a awful lot more appealing than saying, I only do it for the money. But the reality is Donald Trump did everything for the money. I mean, no One in public life that I can remember in my lifetime has been more preoccupied with telling you how rich he is. So money was an enormously compelling piece of his motivation. And the notion that he had enough was not something he actually felt. But I knew that to say that made him more charming and kind of appealing. So this was me doing something that's hardly not been done by others before, including other ghostwriters, but it's trying to put the person's best possible face forward. And that's what I was hired to do, and that's what I did.
- [17:47]
Jane Mayer
Tony, how do you feel about the book looking back? Do you feel that, did it do anything for his future prospects?
- [17:57]
Tony Schwartz
Well, it's hard to remember now given, you know, how incredibly well known he is, but in 1987 when that book came out, people had no idea who Donald Trump was. It had a huge impact on his visibility. I think it even had a huge impact on his self concept. You know, he believes, I think in his mind that he wrote the Art of the Deal. And I did create a character in that book that was not nearly as brutal a character as he actually is. And I definitely believe that it had an impact. And in honesty, I feel as if in many ways I've spent significant portions of my life trying to do penance for having written that book.
- [18:49]
Jane Mayer
Well, you know, I'm sure, Tony, some people will say, oh, you're only speaking out now because you have some kind of political differences with him and that this is all just kind of contrived. But one of the things that I found interesting was that you kept a personal journal and that Even back in 1986, you had these insights about him. And so I was thinking maybe it would be interesting for people to hear what it was that you wrote about what you saw of him and really thought of him privately for a minute from your journal.
- [19:27]
Tony Schwartz
Sure. So here's an entry from October 21, 1986, which would have been maybe 50% of the way into the writing of the book. I'd been reporting it starting in January of 1986. So I'm about nine months in and I've got another six months left to go. And I'm sort of thinking about my life and I say, for example, while I'm fascinated by Trump, and while it's been an interesting experience, the last thing you could call it is nourishing or enriching. It's in fact, precisely the opposite. It's draining, it's deadening, it's one dimensionalizing. It pulls me Away from all that is best in life, complexity and subtlety and caring and nurturing. Because all Trump is, is stomp, stomp, stomp. Recognition from outside, bigger, more, a whole series of things that go nowhere in particular, that are a black hole. That's one.
- [20:24]
Jane Mayer
So when you're up close watching him, what was it you saw that has unnerved you because you've written about how it became more disturbing as you kept going? And what is it that's unnerving you now that's made you want to speak out?
- [20:42]
Tony Schwartz
Well, let me be absolutely most blunt about it. What was most disturbing to me is that we live in a fragile world with nuclear weapons, and he would have access to the codes for those nuclear weapons. And the Trump I know trying to prove his value and his worth and his coolness and his toughness in a confrontation with some other world leader who also has access to nuclear weapons, the image I have is that he'd just get pissed off and want to show how tough he was, and the world would get obliterated. And I know that's a huge thing to say, and I know that it sounds potentially overblown, but, you know, it's one button you have to push. And the evidence is that nobody can stand in the way of a president who makes that decision. And I profoundly don't trust Donald Trump's judgment or character or patience or reflective ability, any of it, to make me feel safe that he won't do that.
- [22:02]
Jane Mayer
I know that for many years, you and Donald Trump didn't have much of a relationship, maybe a cordial phone call here or there. But when I called him up to talk to him, to interview him and ask him how he felt about you first, he said that you were a very good co author. But when I explained then that you were not going to be voting for him, likely, and had some critical things to say about him, his mood changed. And soon after, as I understand it, your phone rang. Can you say what happened?
- [22:42]
Tony Schwartz
Yeah. So I assume it was moments after you hung up with him, Jane. And the phone rang in my car, and it said, unknown id, And I often don't even pick those up. But I, you know, I was in the middle of engaging around this story, and I thought, who knows knows who could be calling? So I. I picked up the phone and. And the voice on the other side said, tony Donald Trump, so I hear you're not going to vote for me. And then he said, well, I just got off the phone with the New Yorker, and I heard you said a lot of critical things about me. And I said, well, I did say a lot of critical things about you. You're running for president of the United States, and I disagree with almost everything that you're saying. And he said, well, fine, but then you should have remained silent. You're totally disloyal. And it went on like that, Jane, for about another five minutes, which were 95% monologue and 5% conversation. And it ended when he said, have a good life, and slammed the phone down.
- [23:47]
Narrator
Tony Schwartz, author and CEO of the Energy Project Jane Mayer is a staff writer at the New Yorker, and her article about the art of the deal is in this week's issue of the magazine. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.