Trump had this urge to be a really big name, so he cultivated celebrity. But his lifestyle was surprisingly unglamorous. He’s quite disciplined in some ways. Doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink, lives above...
Trump continued, I’d rather fight than fold, because as soon as you fold once, you get the reputation of being a folder.
There is no secret to success, Fred explained years later in accepting the Horatio Alger Award, given to people who overcame adversity. There are just two things. One, you must like what you do. You m...
The teacher, Charles Walker, who died in 2015, never told anyone in his family about a student’s striking him. Yet Walker’s contempt for Donald was clear. He was a pain, Walker once said. There are ce...
Sometimes Trump eschewed the company letterhead and just annotated a copy of the offending piece of journalism and sent it to the author. When Times columnist Gail Collins called Trump a financially e...
Separately, Trump said, I’m the least racist person that you’ve ever interviewed.)
Presposterous, Ifshin thought. There’s always a negotiation. And then it dawned on Ifshin that he had been used. Donald, he said, this was your way of getting an informal appraisal, to see if someone...
Only high-ranking student officers were allowed off campus in groups on Sunday afternoons, although cadets could leave for a meal with their parents. Fred Trump often came up to see his son. Once, whe...
One sizable gift came in 1994, when he gave enough to be listed as a founder of the Penn Club’s new location in midtown Manhattan. The minimum gift for that category was $150,000. Two autumns later, D...
He would insist on his right, his obligation, to tell it straight. His language, the belittling little bye-bye wave he gave when security guards ushered out protesters who shouted You’re a bigot!—Trum...
For a time, Trump bragged of being a top student among his 333 Wharton classmates, even claiming to have been first in the class. But Trump is not included on the honor roll printed in the Daily Penns...
DONALD ARRIVED AT NEW York Military Academy in September of 1959, a stocky teenager bewildered by his new surroundings. An hour north of Manhattan, the school was located in tiny Cornwall-on-Hudson, o...
One Trump tenant disturbed by the de facto segregation was the Oklahoman Woodrow Wilson Guthrie—or Woody, as the folksinger was known. He had moved to New York City in 1940, the same year he wrote one...
Founded in 1889 by a Civil War veteran in what had been a summer resort hotel, the academy modeled its strict code of conduct and turreted academic building after West Point, located five miles south...
Whether his students were the sons of plumbers or millionaires, Dobias did not care. They would follow his orders, no questions or whining tolerated. Donald was no exception.
To Trump, winning was always paramount. If I don't win, what have I done?
NORMA FOERDERER, TRUMP’S LONGTIME aide, rushed into the boss’s office on the twenty-sixth floor of Trump Tower. The helicopter that carried the three executives had gone down. Agonizing minutes went b...
As a senior, Donald drew notice for bringing women to campus and showing them around. They were beautiful, gorgeous women, dressed out of Saks Fifth Avenue, said classmate George White. Trump was neve...
Instead of adhering to his father’s commands, Donald had a new master, a gruff, barrel-chested combat veteran named Theodore Dobias. Dobias, or Doby as he was known, had served in World War II and had...