[Music] this American Carnage stops right here and stops right now his presidency and the leadup to his presidency will be studied for the rest of American History Donald Trump is a street fighter when you think of how he started in 2015 he understood where America was going to some degree before America did over the Years I've surprised a lot of people the biggest surprise is yet to come I used to think that Donald Trump really understood the Zeitgeist of the nation you're fired you're fired you're fired now I realized he is the side guys there
was virtually not a person on the planet who didn't know who Donald Trump was to listen to this it's just so ridiculous there's a toughness to him I mean he can take a lot of bullets he can catch bullets in his teeth Donald Trump Is a Survivor he comes as advertised it can be disgusting but there is a genius to it I don't think people change I'm a very big believer in the fact that when you are a certain way that's the way you are I love to fight I always love to fight my father
was a very tough man try and blow all the candles out with one breath okay okay whenever you're ready there's a clear through line that's passed down from generation to Generation if you become a Power broken in Manhattan you are the man Trump Trump trump Trump trump his name is his power do whatever you have to do you say whatever you have to say Winning is Everything I think that to understand Donald Trump you really have to go back to the [Music] [Music] beginning [Music] [Music] [Music] this is called uh topping out right this is
called topping out right see how much I know about a handshake sure they can live in Houston they can live in Paris they can live anywhere in the world many of these very wealthy people have chosen Trump Tower and I think it's a very important step for New York I think it's a vital step for New York [Music] Trump Tower is nothing if not a symbol that Winning is Everything Trump Tower was really the thing that put him on the map in so many ways it won him recognition and even honor and brought him to
a level that he thought had not been possible for his family to date by the way uh he is a chip off the old block this is my father right he was able to surpass his very demanding father leaving behind Brooklyn And Queens and taking over New York but this was not the beginning the Trump family Saga starts much earlier on all right so you know I'm trying to March you through your life I'm not in the pth I'm a person that thinks to the Future that's that's the thing is I just don't like wasting
time on the past other people do have to know about how you got here I'm never in the past right I know I know it's in 2014 I did four sitdown interviews with Donald Trump I wanted to know how was it that this kid from Queens turned himself into the character that became the Donald Trump we know but let me see if I can I don't like talking about the past past is over no I don't want to think about it I don't like to think too much of the past all right well other than
other than this is very Important I learned from the [Music] past Donald's grandfather Friedrich Trump came to the United States in 1885 he was 16 he came from a wine producing small village in Germany but wasn't content to stay there in the middle of the night he writes a letter and leaves it for his mom and in the morning he's gone for Friedrich the goal was to really become a wealthy Man railroads are advertising every day buy a ticket to Fortune buy a ticket West Fredick took off for the Northwest the last part of the
physical Frontier where things were wide open and a young man with a lot of energy might be able to do very well word began to circulate of a mining town just getting going Northeast of Seattle called Monte Cristo being bankrolled of All Things by John D Rockefeller Rockefeller is of course This living emblem of success in America and so if John D Rockefeller says my Engineers have discovered this is great vein of silver ore well off you go all you had to do to stake a claim was declare that you have struck silver on a
piece of land and it was yours to work and no one else could have it in Frederick's case he announced that he had found something when he hadn't even dug a single hole he had no intention of Mining and he in fact instead built a hotel he looked at at the world that he had come into and figured out where there was an opening and figured out how to do it he was very Savvy about that he set himself up to mine the miners providing food fine dining and there is a wonderful euphemism called rooms
for ladies pretty much of a code word for prostitutes there were prostitutes hanging out in the bar and uh any man Who wanted to take the hook up upstairs there were rooms available Fredick was supremely ambitious was willing to do whatever it took in order to get [Music] ahead in 1897 a ship came in to Seattle Laden with gold from the gold fields of the Yukon these men stagger off onto dry land but they can barely walk down the Gangplank because of their sacks and Bags of gold and that set off the Yukon Gold Rush
friederick thought I want a share of the action Frederick makes his way to the Yukon like everybody else it's by foot it's an astonishing Journey up mountain passes single file was an extremely arduous difficult life-threatening [Music] situation the White Pass Trail you could have horses on it and horses could pull the loads Over but these miners had no idea what that in fact involved the horses were completely unsuitable for the absolutely Grim conditions and they died on the trail or they fell and broke their legs or their owners simply shot them because they couldn't go
any further there was a terrifying piece of that trail called the dead horse Gulch which was packed solid with dead horse flesh in fact one of the miners who went Up that trail said that you could have just laid all the horses end to end and you would have been walking over dead horse flesh for 50 miles but for friederick it was an opportunity he had tent restaurants along the way and where would you get fresh meat what do these people need they need food so he uses those dead horses and serves up horse Burgers
serves up horse Steaks friederick arrives in Bennett with all of his guile and all of his resourcefulness and act and he's ready to go into business Bennett was a newly built town that was thrown up by people on the way to the goldfields Bennett was a very Savvy place to be because all the miners had to come through Bennett so there was always going to be traffic he establishes himself builds His Hotel restaurant it's filled it's bustling and apparently the best restaurant in town and that's what the Press accounts said but he hears there's a
railway being built to a place further down the river called White Horse which at that stage was barely more than a couple of buildings Fredick notes that Bennett will be bypassed now what's his response to [Music] This it is to put his restaurant and hotel on a raft and Flo FL it down the river to White [Music] Horse by the time the train arrived there he had a restaurant and a hotel there of course that means that he's in on the ground floor and makes a fortune really fast I don't think given Frederick's character anything
else is going to happen this is a guy of consumate Ambition and he must have led a wildlife cuz you can imagine he owned one little hotel and he'd moved the hotel he'd take it down oh yeah and Flo it on a barge float it on a barge and move it to a better area and they served more than food they right right right right you could satisfy all your appeti he must have led some wildli booze beds and women oh yeah and but he got rich it had to be but he did well yeah
and he was he was a great Guy from what I hear I mean he was he was must have been terrific in his early 30s Fredick goes back to Germany and he has a few things on his mind one is to find a wife he's looking for a lovely German woman to marry and he discovers Elizabeth Chris the two fall in love and were eventually [Music] Married in 1905 they returned to New York she's carrying her son Donald's father Frederick Fredick is not going to operate a saloon SL restaurant SL house of ill repute he's
going to become a businessman and his business is going to be real estate Friedrich is looking out on the world that is New York City and Searching for a frontier just as there was a railroad being built to white horse in the Yukon he sees that the place to be is Queens the frontier is going to be reached by the Queensboro Bridge this is a mighty edifice that is going to literally open up to the crush of people interested in the suburbs the people need homes and he decides It's a Wonderful opportunity for the real
estate man on the [Music] make in the spring of 1918 young Fred Donald's father is 12 years old he went out for a walk with his father as they're walking along his father says he's not feeling well and within hours he's died eventually it becomes clear that what's killed him was the influenza epidemic that's sweeping the country in 1918 and has claimed millions of Lives you can imagine the sense of Siege and worry about how you were going to survive Fred he was the oldest son and as the oldest son he had to step into
this role and take care of things of course their lives were drastically changed Fred Trump senior's experience was in some ways a classic uh borrow ethnic story his childhood was foreshortened so he worked hard and that kind of an upbringing can make you or can break you It made him my father was the greatest cuz he taught me everything he was very knowledgeable he was a very smart guy who's a very good negotiator and he taught me a lot and I learned a lot from my father from Fred at the age of 17 Fred built
his first home he took the profits from that to build another and the profits from that for another and pretty soon the family business was taking off at the height of the depression 1934 With a good deal of homelessness the federal government is trying to address this issue by creating the federal housing Administration the Congress has made made it easier for private Capital to build modest homes and low rental dwellings by seeding all this money by backing all these loans the FHA creates this Whirlwind of development this was the beginning of the Trump Empire the
FHA would be responsible for the funding of some of Fred's biggest projects without the FHA there is no Fred Trump [Music] from the beginning of the FHA until the end of the 1930s he built thousands of homes he was touted as the Henry Ford of Home Building at one point because he had figured out how to do this as economically as [Music] possible Donald Trump grew up in a part Of Queens called Jamaica Estates which is not what we generally think of we think of the Burrows of New York City Donald's house the first time
I saw it in Jamaica Estates was huge it had six giant white twostory pillars and had it under the house garage 23 rooms and even a kind of coat of arms over the door I was incredibly Blown Away today I Could say it was a mega [Music] mansion Donald Trump is the middle of three boys in a family of five children and his older brother Freddy was kind of his hero he was The Sibling that Donald Trump looked up to the most he was such an amazing guy and the best personality best looking guy you'll
ever see he was smart he had everything but he was a very handsome Guy he was a guy with great sense of humor always fun to be around we went to the Trump house often but we never went through the front door we always went through the garage because Mr Trump wouldn't rather not have us around I think he just thought that uh Fred was wasting his time with friends and should be doing more serious things in the 1950s the trumps are one of the Wealthiest families in America Fred senior set the standards set the
expectations and they were very high this was not a let's go out in the backyard and play catch kind of dad this was a do as I say tough old-fashioned father Donald Trump was taught that life is a competition you must win you must be tough Fred Trump saw the world as one of winners and losers very binary approach to life and he impressed upon his Children the idea that they simply had to be winners his father was a brutal man I think that Donald got used to being treated in a totally business like and
transactional way he himself describes the relationship with his father as businesslike to the boys he says you are killers and you are Kings Fred means Kings by Divine Right There is a sense in the Trump family that we are genetically Superior I think you have a natural Ability of things I'm a big believer in in nature no I'm a not nature I'm a big believer natural ability genetically some people can handle pressure better than others I knew numerous people that committed suicide so the one thing I learned about myself uh is that I have a
very unique ability to handle pressure honestly in my opinion that's a genetic thing people don't know about me I have very low blood pressure you know I have the blood pressure of a great athlete I Have very low blood pressure there is a real belief that trumps are Des Destin to rule and they got the message and the message was that you were supposed to Prevail at all cost for Trump Jr would talk about wanting to go into the family business because of his admiration for his father and was very very clear that he wanted
to be the next head of the company Donald was not the young man destined to fulfill the job of running The Trump organization but he refused to be ignored he was the kid that the family had to pay attention to only because it was an enormous discipline [Music] problem Donald and I were cut UPS in school we used to throw spitballs at each other and play bumper chairs and class pull girls hair and that's how come we got detentions where which I politely nicknamed as DTS detentions for Donnie Trump he was someone who uh acted
out at school birthday parties he would grab the cake and throw it around he was angry he would glue his brothers and sisters blocks together he was disliked by many of his teachers threw erasers around actually hit his teacher under the eye with one he took pride in being this tough guy who would push back against other their kids or against teachers who were trying to tell him what to Do he was in short a terror I was a very um rebellious kind of person I don't like to talk about it actually but I was
a very rebellious person and very um set in my ways I don't like that guy love to fight I always love to fight all types of fights any kind of fight I loved it including physical and I was always the best athlete some something that nobody knew about me Okay during this period Westside Story was big on Broadway and was soon to become a movie the Sharks and the Jets were in the imaginations of kids in New York City as Donald tells the story after he had seen West story he and his buddy bought themselves
some switch blades Donald wants everyone to believe that he's a tough guy he promoted this image of himself I'm going to play with knives I'm going to do things that Nobody else does he was impossible to control then his dad found the switch blades and that was the last STW Fred Trump was a man who kept score he kept score every time the school called every time a letter came home every time he found something the knife collection that Donald acquires he saw it as a reflection on him something must be done about it and
his solution was going to be [Music] Extreme at the end of seventh grade I went away to Camp Donald went away to do whatever Donald did and when I came back in September with all my friends I noticed a seat in home room that was not occupied where Donald usually sat and I asked the Home Room teacher where's Donnie against his will Donald Trump is sent to military school by his father in 1959 he arrives at New York mil Military Academy about an hour north of New York City he's 13 years Old I think that
had to be the most miserable existence Donald Trump could imagine for himself he has to wear a uniform he no longer is driven around by the family's chauffeur he is in the dorms with everyone else in the barracks when I got here it was hello good morning now you're in military school and your life has changed all these normal things that go on in normal kids's life they came to a screeching halt your first year you were The low man on the totem pole and you were responsible for learning new guy rules there was mental
hazing there was physical hazing you had to throw yourself against a wall if an upper classman came by and you know apologize for being in his way you might get a a forearm to the chest you might get paddled you might get hit with a broomstick a couple of right hooks on your shoulder two or three upper classman screaming in your face for 15 Minutes before you know it you're beat up Donald went through New Guy Rules with major Ted debias this is a tough guy he was part of the Allied invasion of Italy and
at the end of the war saw musolini swinging from manose they used to come here they were flunkies they call them flunkies and and they grew up to be somebody Donald ran up against major debias like running into a stone wall it's not Flexible and if major debias would see an attitude that attitude ended very very quickly he was a rough guy physically rough and mentally rough and those days it smack the hell out of you really getting in your face I mean like big Le he said things like stand up and I went and
this guy came at you would never believe it these were guys that didn't take you can go two ways you can fight The system you're not going to win CU you're not going to beat guys like this right or you can acclimate and deal with the system and evolve in the system and I did that Theodore debias was a Taskmaster far beyond anything that Donald had seen from Fred Trump and yet he kind of takes to it he liked the discipline he enjoys the hierarchy he didn't like being bossed around he never had but he
liked The idea that the kids who were on the receiving end of all of that aggression would in Fairly short order get to deliver it themselves for Donald the idea aidea was to play the game and win the game turn around and set the terms yourself he literally bowed and scraped before Ted debias in order to win his favor and he discovered that it worked it was Donald who wound up an officer now I went in there as a wise guy you were little you were 13 years Old 13 but I went in as a
wise guy that was a little difficult by the time I graduated I was like top of the military [Music] Heap every year we would send a certain number of cadets down to New York to march in the Columbus St parade so in Columbus Day 1963 Donald Trump led the parade when Trump's mind this return to the city and having clearly a position of authority this is a bit of a retort To his father and it a chance to say it was father look what I've become you thought that you needed to send me away because
I wasn't heading down the right Road look what I've become look what I can do look how I can lead look how I can be that winner that you demanded it was a way of taking that step into Manhattan of going where his father would not go he was determined to show that he could take the family and its Legacy to A new tougher higher Place one of the Tactical officers at the time was a man named Colonel Anthony B Castellano as they were walking up the street Donald looked over and he goes you know
Ace I'd really like to own some of this property Someday My Father was a very good Builder mhm and he really did a good job he would build a building and next door they'd build a building and my father's Houses were better and he'd build them cheaper so he'd spend less money building a better house and he'd sell it for more in the mid 1960s Fred Trump starts to think at this point about moving beyond more modestly ized projects and build on a scale unlike anything Fred Trump has built before named Trump [Music] Village wait
a minute wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute Trump Village a Middle inome co-op in Cony Island Housing 2,800 families Trump Village Apartments how do you get in here is it worth waiting yes my mother lives in a terrible apartment they say it would take six or seven years or maybe eight well I'll take the chance this is a project that ends up being far greater in scope than anything he's done before his previous projects the buildings were at most five six Stories and here he really sets his sights much higher literally and
it's also the first time that Fred Trump labels a project clearly with the family name Trump Village would emerge as one of Fred Trump's greatest public successes but ironically it also was going to be the source of one of the greatest public humiliations in 1966 New York state began probing into What was going on at Trump Village Fred Trump is hauled in for questioning for misusing funds overbilling the government for equipment for for services related to Trump Village it includes him charging the state about $8,000 a piece for tile scrapers that normally cost $500 more
glaringly he overcharges the state for about $6.6 million in fees the net result is it's very clear Fred Trump is gouging the state of New York and New York residents to line his own pockets one of the Commissioners finally says is there any way we can prevent someone like this from ever getting a state contract [Music] again here he is the patriarch of the family somebody they looked up to to have him being publicly called out like that was extremely embarrassing to them neighbors School Ates people were asking questions that they were seen as Unpatriotic
possibly criminal the 1966 State investigation really had a I would say a devastating impact on Fred Trump trump Village really becomes the last significant project that he builds Fred spent three decades building his company and he was now looking for an heir who he felt was worthy of inheriting that mantle and moving the company forward but when Donald graduates from college the expectation is that he's Going to join the family business to work first for his father and then eventually for his brother Fred who's considered The Heir Apparent I think that what Fred expected of
Fred Jr was something that it was it was almost a classical King's approach to raising Sons if this son is worthy of me he can rise to the throne uh not every son is going to thrive in that kind of [Music] Environment there was a nervous quality about Fred he was always on I wondered in retrospect whether some of his anxiety was uh caused by the constant pressure of trying to please his father the point of no return in his relationship with his father was the attempted development of property in Coney Island I remember steeple
chase vividly It had a a face with a big smile with lots of teeth showing it was a happy place it was a playground and it was a reminder that Coney Island was this Haven for people in New York off the Subways came streaming a million people on a weekend million people coming to Cony Island and many of them were coming to se chase by the 60s Coney Island is in Decline so Fred Trump buys steeple chase very quickly largely under the radar of The folks in Coney Island he wants to build housing there problem
is Fred Trump fails to get the necessary zoning change that would enable him to build this housing walk right by the business community in Coney Island is desperate to have steeple chase preserved Fred Trump knew that if it got landmarked uh there was nothing much more he could do with this site Fred got Fred Jr involved in accelerating their demolition of this Property before they had permission to build on it Fred Jr is trying his hardest to work with his father father to demonstrate that he's as tough and as smart as his father so Fred
Trump organizes a wrecking party of sorts to celebrate the development of Apartments along the seashore and the success of the Trump organization invites all these people to come and basically hurl bricks through the Great Glass Windows through the enormous painting on the glass of the Great smiling face of steeple chase the thought that you would encourage people to throw bricks to destroy that smile that face that was such an integral part of growing up in Coney Island I mean it's [Music] unbelievable in the end it was a public relations nightmare for the trumps Fred JR
could never do the political work and The other logistical work that was required to make the development real and the property even today is not the site of any housing and after the Fiasco at steeple chase it was clear to all of the trumps that Fred Jr was not going to fulfill his father's expectations early in life Donald looked up to Fred Jr as the big brother he was a very Charming very caring young man and yet Donald became very Competitive with Fred Jr and really showed him no mercy if I were going to make
a movie of this I would see a younger brother trying to get Primacy in a family this became an increasingly terrible situation Fred Trump would belittle Fred Jr in meetings he would sadistically attack him saying what do you know in the early 1970s Fred senior takes the Fateful move he makes Donald President of the Trump organization what Fred Senor is communicating here is unmistakable Donald has made it he is the future Fred Jr has not made it and he's never going to make it he had talked so much about working for his dad and taking
over the company well I think that the father at some point decided that Fred was a loser I've got to Believe that uh uh Fred took that rejection very hard Fred essentially drove his son Fred JR out of the family and I think Fred ended up a lost soul he had his own dream to be a commercial airline pilot in the end Fred left the Trump organization and went off to train as a pilot he was having a tremendous hard time and he started drinking and he got hooked on Alcohol and he became a very
serious alcoholic and it was rough for [Music] him I've thought uh long and hard about Fred's life and uh wonder how much of a role that uh rejection from his father may have played in his in his sad [Music] life I like to learn from other people's mistakes I like to learn from my mistakes but I like to learn more from Other people's mistakes cuz why should I have to make a mistake if I can learn from somebody else I've learned so many lessons by watching other people make mistakes some fatal and some not fatal
and some not even near fatal but I study other people's mistakes Fred Jr did not do much of anything the way that his father expected his whole approach to life was contrary to the old man's and Donald observed Fred senior's Impatience with Fred junor it's identified by him as a sign of Fred's weakness Donald's takeaway from this is that it's an example of what he should never do in his own life and he sees here is this big opportunity for me that my brother squandered when I was growing up the signs on the Bel Parkway
didn't say to Manhattan they said to New York City so you had a very strong sense that Manhattan was New York City and you were Not you in the outer Burrows you grew up with this chip on your shoulder the city so nice they had to name it twice well New York New York is Manhattan it's the lake in the park it's the skyline after dark it's the empire State it's the Monument of world peace the UN and if you become a Power broker in Manhattan you are the man from an early age Donald Trump
knew there was more than queens he felt Constricted by uh his father's world of the outer Burrows imagine a young Donald Trump he leaves this mansion that he lives in with his parents in Jamaica Estates and every morning makes his way down south long Belt Parkway to Avenue Z in Brooklyn not far from the waste treatment plant and into the shabby offices of the Trump organization he was trying so hard to get away from being the son of a Developer from Coney Island a father who operated out of a very modest almost trailer likee Affair
filled with cigar store Indians Donald Trump hated going to that job he was there to collect rents he was there to process the paperwork he was there to check in and keep an eye on the contractors this was not where he wanted to be you're a young guy right this is early' 70s you're barely 30 years old When you start this younger younger 28 yeah what do you thinking what are you thinking I really got to get into Manhattan I worked in Brooklyn for my father you know I did very well I did a lot
but I always wanted to be in Manhattan my father was a very good Builder M but he built on his own territory he felt comfortable in Brooklyn and Queens he never wanted to enter Manhattan he didn't think it was his Place for Donald Trump Manhattan it's like Oz he's staring across the East River at Oz and he wants a piece of [Music] that and he gets a one room studio and he moves in man hand he's going to become a player he had his Cadillac convertible with personalized license play djt and he would go bing
up and down the Avenues looking for properties to buy thinking you know if I could just start small doing in Manhattan what his Father had done in the outer Burrows real estate prices were going down and so it was open territory for Real Estate developer who was eager to make his Mark he was generating and grooming this image of himself as a Playboy millionaire and so he would go out to the clubs that were hot at that moment the club was a place where you would roll up to the bar hoping to meet a model
so you could see that a Donald Trump would be attracted to that kind of a scene I was one of the very first female members of the club and it was glamorous and fun and they played fabulous music it was the hottest place in town it had a very intimate dance floor all the women were Chic and well-dressed and the men were handsome wearing either suits or Tuxedos and you could really fall in love with anybody in this place and I remember one night I went Over to the major D and I said who is
that man he said he's a new member his name is Donald Trump I thought he was extremely handsome he had a way about him that just caught my eye immediately you went to Li CL the greatest I've ever been the level of beauty was late love to me was the greatest love that I've ever been associated in the world I've been to every I've Been Everywhere Trump would hang out there in Order to be noticed but also to get to know the movers and shakers of this new world of Manhattan that he was diving into
Donald very much set his sights on becoming a player in the hierarchy of New York real estate but before he could make his move in Manhattan a problem arrived on the doorstep of his father the justice department filed a lawsuit against the Trump organization alleging that they had discriminated against black and Latin families wanting To live in the buildings that his father had built this was a big problem that could jeopardize any deal the 1973 lawsuit alleges rampant discrimination on the part of the Trump order organization we're not talking about discrimination here and there we're
talking about systemic structural discrimination and this is a kitchen here I was contacted and asked to be a tester for the uh Beach Haven Apartments Which were owned by Trump management there was a sign outside that said apartment for in and this articulate well-dressed black man had applied for the apartment and the superintendent he said to the man uh I'm sorry but the apartment is taken as I remember it was a gentleman and he said I have none to sure because there's nothing vacant right now right after I I left they sent a white person
the super greeted me with open arms like He was just waiting for me and he handed me me the lease and I just ran and when I got outside I met up with the commissioner and we walked back into the building and at this point the superintendent all he could say was uh well uh I'm just doing what my boss told me to do you feel outraged you feel insulted I'm a young black man who has been to college who has a job so you do feel a sense of anger at the fact that Society
still allows this sort of thing To happen in 1973 I went out to Trump Village and tried to interview as many people as I could and we found out that if a person of color did apply to live a trump Village they on their application would be handwritten WR a big c for colored those applications would then be put in a separate pile and those people would be offered either no apartment or they'd be offered a lesser apartment and A lesser property the justice department comes after Donald Trump and his father Fred accusing them of
racial discrimination and everyone around him including his father is saying just settle Donald nobody be beats the federal government as Donald Trump was deciding whether to settle the racial bias case on behalf of the company and his father he goes into the club he walks in and there's a man at The table and that man is Roy con the meeting between Roy con and Donald Trump began one of the most important relationships in Trump's life this fight I have absolutely toal total confidence is going to be one and one completely and totally to this day
Roy con is one of the most controversial and hated people in America mention his name and people will throw things at you to Donald Trump Roy con is exactly what his father had called a Killer Donald Trump had two mentors his dad who taught him there are killers and losers and Roy con who said even when you lose you win doesn't matter if it look you say it's a win when it's a loss Roy con as a young man was Chief counsel to senator Joseph McCarthy McCarthy was the rabble rousing senator from Wisconsin Who Rose
to power on a lie all the sen democraty has been trying to do is expose the Communists the lie was that there were hundreds of People in the government who were Communists it was all fake Roy helped Senator McCarthy invent things so out of whole cloth invent you know communist conspiracies and communist and state department and all that Roy pushed that through are you now have you ever been a member of the wait a minute let me ask a question asking me to violate the Constitutional not violate the constition answer question Years before Twitter years
before cable news Roy knew that he'd get headlines he could make allegations and that would stick you do good work but McCarthy and Roy con were driven out of Washington in an utter state of disgrace when they were belittled by Joseph Welch in a beautiful moment of American Theater when he said have you no sense of decency sir at long last have you left no sense of decency when Roy came to New York he Played it like a win and he rose to become one of the most powerful fixers in New York of the 20th
century Roy and Trump met at the club which was in those days the place to be and Don proceeds to tell him that the US justice department is going after the Trump family really hard for discriminate against people in their in the housing they own and everybody's telling Trump just settle it Roy is a first one who says to Trump what are you Talking about go after the justice department Counterattack you can win this Roy con was a great lawyer you talk about a controversial guy I mean he was guy but if he was your
friend he would fight to the death did you know his reputation yeah I I I did but his reputation was tough I needed a tough lawyer you know I was dealing with tough people and Roy was very good and Roy for me did a great [Music] Job Donald and Fred Trump along with Roy Cohen called a press conference he did something Preposterous which is they said that they were suing the justice department for [Music] defamation Donald says this isn't about racism I don't want them in there because they're all welfare recipients nothing could be further
from the truth it was just a madeup story he knew it was an effective public statement to Make to spin the public debate in a different way this is all Roy con it's Roy con who's got Trump at his knee telling him how the world Works Roy understood how to generate news and how the media worked and he understood the interplay between public events and media coverage Trump marveled at con's understanding of how to sell an idea both his legal tactics and the coverage Of the matters in which he was involved I remember the first
big argument in court Roy Cohen speaks uninterrupted for 45 minutes Donald Trump was very flippant and one of his comments during one of the breaks was you know you don't want to live with them either Roy assures Donald that they can go into the this and win they don't they lose they have to settle with the federal Government the Trump organization they say we didn't admit guilt we didn't say that we did anything wrong we settled with the justice department just to make it go away to this day you know you asked Donald Trump about
that and he says well we won that of course that's not true it was a big victory for the justice department I think that case you know to this day is in in Trump's mind he hated being accused of Discrimination he hated the idea that the government went after him and his father and he holds animous towards the government to this [Music] day standard and Poor's Bond rating service said today it is absolutely certain that New York City will default on its death President Ford has been against Federal help for New York saying it would
establish a costly precedent default if you must but don't expect Help from the federal government people were fleeing the city and that was when Ford said Dro dead the famous article you know it wasn't like that competitive I was wanting to come in and other people were afraid to touch the was on the sidelines they all gone or bust and and the city was doing terribly crime was through the roof I didn't think about it because I was counter to the market I was very counterintuitive I've always been Counterintuitive the Manhattan that Donald Trump crossed
the bridge to fulfill his dreams was a Manhattan in pretty sorry shape crime was at record height people were afraid the city was near bankruptcy I wrote the column for the Daily News writing about New York the attitude in New York was a depressing attitude it was a feeling that oh my God the city is really in Danger other news the Penn Central which has been running in the red for a long time now decided today to sell off some Choice real estate including 10 blocks in downtown Manhattan they hope to bring in about a
billion dollars in the deal Penn Central most people thought of it as two railroad companies but it was really a landowning company that happened to have some railroads Rail Yards were on the market Grand Central was on the market and even Hotel Companies it was more or less a fire sale Donald Trump stumbles upon an announcement in the press that the Commodore Hotel one of the grand old hotel properties of Manhattan is sitting there unwanted so it was a big deal when Donald said he was going to restore a cruddy Hotel on 42nd Street at
a time when New Yorkers were realing we insecure we frightened here's Donald Trump on the scene bold optimistic he Was kind of a rare ray of light in a in a pretty dark scene he began to play all the players against each other to get the property he went to Penn Central and said hey look I have the agreement of Hyatt and they're going to make this a Hyatt Hotel so you should give it to me I'll renovate it he didn't have the agreement of Hyatt but he said he did then he went to Hyatt
and said hey I'm the one with the control of the property from Penn Central which he didn't have they each bought the story so now he had both the land and the name Hyatt and their cooperation now he needed money goes to the bank and says hey I've got this tax abatement from from the government he didn't have it at that point but he persuaded the bank that he did in the ultimate showman kind of way he was being heart operator heart Savvy [Music] businessman Donald Trump came in to see Me and he wanted me
to exempt his hotel from real estate taxes which I had the power to do but I said no because I did not believe and do not believe that a Hiatt Hotel on 42nd Stree would not earn enough money to pay taxes when I said no he was extremely unpleasant Donald got very angry and threatened to have him fired he told me what to do to myself I told him he better get out I'd have him Arrested I think he was worried he needs every little bit of help that he can get Donald didn't have a
lot but he did have one thing his father so he went to his father to help him out his father was very close to both the governor and to the mayor and so he had entree when he wanted to put forward this idea of getting a big tax break and so thanks to his political connections he was able to get the support of both the city and the state the control offices this closely And supports the renovation of the commodor hotel and reconstruction of the hotel s I'm not sure whether we're making the wisest decision
in the world I know that there is no other decision before us to make and may feels that this is the best possible proposal that the city could get at this time vot I Donald Trump through a complicated series of absolute Moxy Maneuvers managed to get a huge huge tax break it's been a long hard fight how do you Feel well I'm very happy and I think the city of New York is going to be very happy we're going to do something now which is going to be a great stride forward for New York City
Donald Trump is a street fighter and Donald Trump wants to win he is the consumate constant negotiator people asked me how come how is it that you got 40 years of tax abatement and I'd always say because I didn't ask for 50 but there was more work to be Done Donald Trump upon the city's demand was required to submit the contract that indicated he had permission from the Penn Central Railroad so Donald said here's my contract with Penn Central no one actually looked at the last page to notice it had never been signed so he
moved forward on a project of immense scale guaranteeing the city that he had the legal authority to do it and he did not have the Authority and nobody nobody noticed nobody noticed they just said could we see your contract so I sent them a contract it was signed by me and nobody else and nobody ever nobody said nobody ever signed the other all if they had said hey what what's going on would you have coed to it would you have said well you didn't tell me I don't know what I would have done and I
went through all of that stuff to get the tax abatements that had never been given in The history of New York because the city was in trouble right where did you hear that story I got my sources it's really the model that sets up everything that follows the idea of playing one player against the other a very bit of huster ism mixed with some business savvy to create the buzz the pr all of that sense of trump as a force comes out of the Hyatt deal amid a lot of fanfare the Grand Hyatt held its
grand opening today the mayor and the governor of New York were among those on hand for the ribbon County Hyatt Regency is now an architectural gem for all the world to see Patt is a fantastic outfit and all of this is going to combine to make probably the most successful Hotel one of them in the country we feel it was fabulous he did it fast and he did it efficient it really gave him a sense of Pride and a sense that he knew exactly what he was doing the Commodore was a stepping Stone to the
Trump [Music] Tower friend of mine in the real estate industry said you have the greatest ability to get great locations of any human being I've ever seen it's true no matter what it is if you look at any of my projects I have the best [Music] Locations one day so The Story Goes Donald is looking for an ideal location to put up what would become a signature project he's crisscrossing Manhattan in his car looking for that ideal situation suddenly reaching the corner of Fifth Avenue and 56th Street and noticing the bonwit teller building an old
art deco 10-story department store here is the opportunity Donald is looking for and it is at that corner that he decides this this is where I'm Going to stake my future the finest piece of real estate considered to be the finest piece of real estate in the world is at the corner of Fifth Avenue in 57th Street that's the Tiffany corner of the world the New York Times is reporting that Bon witz is being sold to Donald Trump and that the store could be closed by July bonwit gives him a 6mon $25 million option to
purchase the property he was constantly ly borrowing money from his Father during this period and he had to get a partner Equitable bank because he can't do this alone he just doesn't have the money to build his signature Tower so now he's got a mortgage the interest clock is ticking he's got a partner that's taking the bulk of the profits he needs every little bit of help that he thinks he can get so he again lashed on to tax breaks Donald Trump now faces the Biggest Skirmish in his battle to build Trump Tower he's going
to come into conflict with the mayor of New York City the positions that I take are not ideological they are reasonable they are sensible and that's why people support me look Ed cotch was a totally overrated mayor he was a bad guy you can quote me Ed cotch was a bad guy he was a total bully all Ed kotch was concerned about was press in other words he wanted to make sure he looked good Ed go yourself You're a piece of that have particular dut the city was offering tax breaks to developers but they were
not thinking that this is a kind of tax break they would give away for luxury apartments this was a program that would be used to turn a vacant lot into an apartment building for the middle class but here comes this application from Donald Trump and the city turns him down he's Outraged Trump sues the city so now he's at loggerheads with the kotch administration and that potentially meant a long battle that could go on for years one of the beneficiaries of the abatements is real estate developer Donald Trump I was entitled to that abatement and
I am by law entitled to that abatement councilman Henry Stern and councilman Robert Wagner Jr opposed it as an excessive gift of public funds I did a weekly show between Ruth Messenger who's a city council member who was very much against giving any tax breaks to businessmen particularly businessmen like him Donald Trump and Trump believed in tax breaks particularly for him the program has become a corporate welfare program I really think before you make those statements on the air that you should go back and check your facts and figures Donald the statute says very specifically
that in order to qualify The site on which the residential building is going up is either vacant predominantly vacant or underutilized you don't think a 10 story building is an underutilization when I'm building a 68 story building oh I see okay okay tell me about it D I had the grand time between these two it was a night fight Ruth I'd like to ridiculous to listen to this I mean look at the end of the day there's a toughness to him I mean this is a very tough guy I mean he can take a Lot
of bullets he can catch bullets in his teeth he can eat broken glass a punch back sort of a person with a armadillo skin this it's just so ridiculous you've asked me onto a program I'm supposed to be and I listen to this that it's a calling card attack the person personally don't give them a quarter don't be nice don't be reasonable attack them you have to destroy them because they're going to destroy you if you spent the same time Trying to clean up our Subways and clean up the city of crime well I don't
know that you do if you do you're certainly doing a very ineffective job sound familiar when Trump finally got all the permissions he needed and was ready to roll on the construction of Trump Tower his pride and joy he needed to get someone who actually knows how to build a building Donald and I sort of worked together while I was working on the high I was at a fundraiser with my husband and he said to my husband uh I'm going to hire her she's going to work for me I'm going to double herself s and
that's how I learned about Trump Tower she was the first woman to run the construction of a major skyscraper Trump was always proud of the fact that he put a woman in that position and entrusted her with this project from beginning to end barar rest had a very tough job it was a culture of Macho men a lot of these guys are chauvinistic pigs you know to be quite honest there were no women in the construction you could count him on one hand I even if you lost a few fingers he said something to me
he said men are better than women but a good woman is better than 10 good men and he meant that as a compliment Donald trusted me implicitly and he respected people that Told him things the way they were and it was not easy to do that because when you stood up to him you got you got hammered he said to me you know you're a killer and I later learned that his father actually used that expression with him that people should be Killers I thought and I quickly confirmed that it was very inexperienced he really
didn't know much about construction at all but I thought that he was intelligent didn't have to tell Him a hundred times and with him that was a good thing cuz he could only listen once if you were lucky and you got him to listen to a whole story [Music] once the project got the green light Donald Trump confronted the next problem which was how do we take down this 10-story department store most famously that building had this facade of gorgeous sculptures that were the Hallmark of bonwit teller one of the Most prized architectural features on
Fifth Avenue these stone relief sculptures at the top of the building were uh very stylized very naked dancers with long scarves Trump made a deal to remove this piece of art carefully from the facade of the building and give it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and this would be a compromise the the great Landmark art would be saved and Trump would be able to go ahead and demolish The [Music] building in order to get the demolition done cheaply Donald Trump as he often did found the lowest bidding company he could he hired a Polish
demolition company which turned out to employ immigrants who are undocumented they were being paid essentially less than $5 an hour when they got cash some of them said they Were being paid in vodka they did the work 12 to 18 hour days and it's dangerous ous Dirty Work you're dismantling concrete debris falling down on you they had nowhere to live they were sleeping on the floor of the bonwit teller store at night and all of this was done at Breakneck pace and then one afternoon one of the directors of the Metropolitan Museum of Art gets
a call in her office and she's Told Donald Trump is destroying the freeze I got into a taxi got into a classic New York City traffic jam I was 9 months pregnant at the time but I got out of the cab and I ran for 10 blocks I'll never forget that run got down 56th Street and we watched them being Jack hammmer [Music] I was [Music] Furious the Trump organization could have asked the Met for help in taking the pieces down and removing them they [Music] didn't you were recently the object of a lot of
controversy because you order destroyed some sculptures on the building that you bought that the Metropolitan Art Museum want why did you have those destroyed first of all and what happens to the look of a city as an Art building or an art deco building it really was not worth very much and we did take it down and there was somewhat of an outcry but I think that's generally subsided he gets a bunch of bad publicity but in his mind it's all good publicity because here he's seen as this force of progress this guy who's bulling
his way through all this red tape and all these fussy artist types in order to get his building built and to get the Commerce of New York moving again very carefully Donald is putting all the pieces in place for this signature project but he's also borrowing money all over the place while he often portrays himself as sort of a self-made man the only money he had is what he borrowed from his father Fred Trump was nervous he was co-signing all the loans he was the one it was his money Fred Trump was involved in the
Trump Tower project that's how I met him I remember he was he didn't like me I let's put it this way he hated me he hated the very notion that a woman would be working in construction to begin with and much less be in charge of a project that was his son's project so uh we were like he would say oh no that's all wrong you don't know what you're doing but I went to Donal I said you you've got to get your father off my back he's driving me crazy and he said to me
suck it up baby in so many words Because you know he was putting up with them too most buildings by the time that Trump Tower was built were using steel to put structures up and what was unusual about Trump Tower was that it was largely built out of concrete what we were doing was what's called a fast track which is you build it before it's completely designed and it was a concrete building which was great because you design it one day and You can pour it the next most of the Contracting the construction industry in
New York was controlled to a large extent by the mob specifically the concrete business business that you could call Mafia Inc they are said to run the most powerful crime families in New York Federal investigators say the mob controls the concrete workers in the construction industry my name is Michael Frances and uh you can call me Michael that's fine And how do you credential yourself you know former C regime in the Columbo crime family is a normal moniker for me and um I guess for this purpose is probably the best way to address it basically
the mob controlled all the concrete business in the city of New York because Trump Tower was a concrete building you know it was a big score for us guys you know and I want to be clear I'm not Saying that you know Trump was in bed with the mob I'm not saying that he was one of our guys but he certainly had a deal with us I mean he didn't have a choice so in that regard he [Music] did in 1982 there was a major stoppage among all the concrete providers everybody's worried a lot of
developers are in a bind now there's a delay in their construction when it occurred we were in the process of pouring concrete To get the main structure up and every day that you lose that goes by is a day delayed and uh it costs money for Donald they're not going to beat us I mean we can hold out as long as we want to hold out so you know eventually they have to come around John Cody was a union boss who lived on the dividing line between the union and the mob Cody was a guy
who could make things go well for you or he could make things go poorly for you it's An interesting question as to why when every other developer in New York can't get access the concrete Donald Trump is still able to just move along swimmingly one of the things that Cody was able to do for Trump was make sure that drivers continue to deliver concrete to the site you have to be able to deal with many different things to be able to be a successful developer you have to be able to deal with the unions and
concrete Guys who are mobed up you have to get you get along with these people you had no choice there was nobody else to do it Trump struck a deal with John Cody and Mr Cody was able to get an apartment for his mistress in Trump Tower she was given a very prominent apartment on a high floor of Trump Tower and she had one demand and that was she wanted a swimming pool in her apartment Trump Tower did not come with a swimming pool so Trump went in and had that part Of the building reinforced
so that it could hold the weight of a swimming pool and all the water in it this is the world Trump operated in and shortly before Trump Tower was finished Cody was convicted of racketeering and sent to prison I don't like getting close to people like that but they respected me and a lot of this is relationships a lot of is Rel well a lot of life is relationship a lot of what I've done is Relationship a lot of great things that have happened to me happened to me because of relationship millionaire real estate developer
Donald Trump will get a handsome tax break for his latest project on Fifth Avenue in the case of Trump Tower he engaged the city in a big battle over getting this deal and in the end there was a fair umpire in the court of appeals of New York State and he won fairen square and got his tax Abatement well here we are on the top of the Trump Towers today is the topping off of this fabulous building when they finally finished the Trump Tower Donald took the opportunity to have a topping off golf party but
this is the greatest Skyline in the world so this is a great addition to New York skyline what do you think about the view it's pretty nice from up here isn't it I've always wanted to look down on General Motors it was quite exciting being on the top of the Building when they finished it off put the last Cornerstone in and everybody was there with balloons and it was quite a Fanfare Trump Tower was the biggest moment in Donald's life8 years ago I must say I was embarrassed to say I was in the real estate
business in New York today I can honestly say I'm proud of it and it's the number one city in the world and I say a large part of that is due to the Tremendous abilities of Mayor kach I think he's done a tremendous job thank you very much yeah all the media were there covering this and um kot gave a speech which was so funny because they hated each other and may the windows of this building forever look out upon a place of peace and prosperity congratulations thank you very nice very very nice Mr what
are your sentiments today regarding the whole celebration very happy day the comp the completion Of the tallest concrete building in the city of New York how are the sales going well I have nothing to do with sales but they I hear they're going excellent fantastic unbelievable I think Fred Trump was authentically proud of Donald's early successes in New York he was amazed that his little boy had graduated from Queens into a premier address in Manhattan and was able to build a Landmark Tower with the family name on It I remember we were going up to
New York on spring break and I asked my son what he wanted to do in New York what he wanted to see and he said most of all he wanted to go see the lobby of Trump Tower and sure enough we did it and we were all pretty impressed I remember walking in and looking up and seeing this escalation L and seeing the fountains and feeling that I was you know as an outsider as a as a brid that this was the apotheosis of big glitzy You know vulgar if you like Americano and I loved
him because you know that's what was fun about America was kind of the Liberace of buildings really if you like here is Donald being laed for this great achievement but obviously absent from celebration is Donald's elder brother Fred Jr as a pilot Fred Jr continues to Struggle with what in retrospect will be seen as a lifelong battle with alcohol and he falls out of Grace with the Airlines and cannot function as a pilot anymore by this time in his life it's been communicated by his father and by his brother that they don't expect much from
him he winds up moving home and into the family mansion and is essentially a handyman for the Trump Properties ordered about by his father asked to do menial tasks he was intended to be heir to the throne of the Trump organization but from this went on and he really did start to spiral downward more rapidly Fred was a great guy but you know he had an alcohol problem okay and he was such an amazing guy and the best personality best looking guy you'll ever see and you know ate a lot of things but He had
an alcohol problem I never really thought of his having a problem with drinking really until the last time I saw him and that was in the hospital of Manhattan he kept saying I've got to get off the sauce I've got to get off the sauce his passing is the first real loss in Donald's life but Donald viewed Fred Jr's death as an example of weakness of what happens when you're not Tough Enough when you don't fight when you don't strike back it's just a fact of life that some people win and some people lose and
they may be brothers but they're still winners and losers what his father taught him that he was a killer turned out to be true Donald Trump had made all of this happen he was not yet 40 years old and he was a force to be reckoned with on the the island of Manhattan there was no greater proof that could be offered by life of The Excellence of the Trump method and the superiority of his own talents than the completion of this Grand project by the way uh he is a chip off the old block this
is my Father Fred right you were going to say something about your dad you said he was very difficult to work with number one he was a very tough man but he was was also a a man that would never let anything go he was a very strong man he was a very detailed oriented person but it did Great deals for him in fact he gave a statement to Business Week Magazine many many years ago everything Donald touches turns to [Music] Gold Donald Trump was never a man who was dying to settle down he took
us to our hotel and next day I got three dozens of the Rosies try and blow all the candles out with one breath okay you want to hold it the name Marlo Maples came up shortly After that no guy likes talking about Affairs by the way it had sex it had Beauty it had bazillions of bucks it had everything the attention he got in the media actually made him feel alive well there's a lot of coverage of that then gradually of course things got out of control he was frightened Trump was staring at destroying not
only his own legacy but his father's Legacy as well But you have said that if you ran for president you'd win I think I'd have a very good chance I mean I like to win he's one of the greatest shows on Earth you don't know what he's going to do next and you can't stop watching
