The Washington Post ran a column by investigative reporter Jonathan Greenberg a few days ago that described Trump’s efforts in the 1980s to spin his way into the Forbes Magazine list of the 400 wealthiest people in the U.S. (“Trump lied to me about his wealth to get onto the Forbes 400. Here are the tapes.”).
To put it bluntly, this is really a must-read.
Greenberg provides his recollections of trying, as a young reporter working on the Forbes 400 project, to separate fact from fiction when dealing with Trump’s claims.
The problem, he learned later, was that even though he was skeptical, he wasn’t prepared to find himself dealing with someone who didn’t just exaggerate, but blatantly fabricated tales of personal wealth.
He writes:
I was a determined 25-year-old reporter, and I thought that, by reeling Trump back from some of his more outrageous claims, I’d done a public service and exposed the truth. But his confident deceptions were so big that they had an unexpected effect: Instead of believing that they were outright fabrications, my Forbes colleagues and I saw them simply as vain embellishments on the truth. We were so wrong.
This was a model Trump would use for the rest of his career, telling a lie so cosmic that people believed that some kernel of it had to be real. The tactic landed him a place he hadn’t earned on the Forbes list — and led to future accolades, press coverage and deals. It eventually paved a path toward the presidency.
What adds additional depth to his account are the accompanying recordings of Trump posing as “John Barron,” supposedly a spokesman for Trump. But its now obvious, listening to the recordings, that Barron is Trump.
It’s a long and amazing assessment, aided by hindsight, debunking Trump’s claims about his personal and business wealth based on detailed assessments, backed up by documentary references (and those fine historic recordings).
When finished, I just had to shake my head in wonder. How is it possible that he created this fantasy world and maintained it by hook or by crook until he put himself in position to be elected president?
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You observed, “How is it possible that he created this fantasy world and maintained it by hook or by crook until he put himself in position to be elected president?” Now most of the way through the “Fire and Fury” audiobook, I find this story (sadly) not terribly surprising.
The punchline of the article is Trump’s recognition that his core asset is “an ineffable marketing claim [i.e. the Trump brand] that is impossible to substantiate or refute.” In accounting parlance this is the intangible known as “good will.” But in Trump’s case his history of using bankruptcy filings as “business tools” along with litigation and the practice of stiffing vendors this amounts to “ill will.”
It doesn’t seem to matter. NYT reports that evangelical support for Trump grows stronger by the day. They say he delivers on what they care about — immigration, jobs, Christian religion protection — and that his business or moral stains don’t matter as much as those other things do. As one woman said: “We were not picking a husband. We were picking a president.”
“…his business or moral stains don’t matter as much as those other things do. As one woman said: ‘We were not picking a husband. We were picking a president.'”
This makes me want to weep.
As James Comey said, Trump lies about everything, big and small. The “Big Lie” is a propaganda technique also perfected by Adolph Hitler, and other dictators, big and small.
As James Comey said, Trump lies about everything, big and small. The “Big Lie” is a propaganda technique also perfected by Adolph Hitler, and other dictators.