O’REILLY: Listen to me for a minute. You are successful. You are smart. The Trump brand is the premier brand in America. There’s no question about it. She goes on her program and smears and slimes you. She started it, not you.
TRUMP: She started it, I finished it.
O’REILLY: Well, you didn’t finish it because it will go on. Why don’t you just beat her intellectually? Why the personal stuff?
TRUMP: I’ve beaten her intellectually, Bill. She’s easy to beat intellectually … look at her performance on The View today. She was a mess, she was nervous, she was fumbling, she was stumbling … Rosie was an absolute mess today, and you know why? Because she’s concerned that I’m gonna sue her …
O’REILLY: But I’m saying to you that calling her Pig Face, getting into her sex life, these things—it doesn’t make you look good.
TRUMP: Excuse me! She’s allowed to make fun of my hair?
O’REILLY: That makes her look bad! Don’t you understand that?
TRUMP: Excuse me, Bill. She’s allowed to do that, but I shouldn’t be doing it?
O’REILLY:… It makes her look terrible.
TRUMP: There are two types of people in this world: people that take it and people that don’t take it. Rosie is a bully. Rosie was hit between the eyes …
O’REILLY: So, on the lawsuit, you can’t win it and I’ll tell you why, because you’ve got to prove damages, and you’re not going to be able to prove that.
TRUMP: You know what, Bill. Don’t be my lawyer …
O’REILLY:… Can I be your adviser? Don’t do any more personal attacks … If you had just gone after her on the basis of what she said and just said, “Look, I’m not going to get in the gutter with Rosie O’Donnell,” I think you would have won big here.
TRUMP: Except nobody would listen to that.
O’REILLY: I would.
TRUMP:… Nobody would listen to that. If I attack it on a purely intellectual level, which is essentially what I’ve done but using a little bit more venom. If I attack it on a purely intellectual basis, nobody would listen and the response would not have been nearly as effective.
There it is. You may want to read that last Trump answer again because it explains much about his thinking even while sitting in the White House. And he’s not wrong. In America today, we the people are almost numb to controversy because there’s one every ten seconds. Before almost anyone, Donald Trump understood that maulers win the debate, that harsh attacks get massive attention, that incendiary rhetoric rattles opponents.
That’s what was behind the Trump birth certificate offensive. Trump wanted to establish himself as an anti-Obama person quickly. He wanted to tweak the president. It had nothing to do with skin color, in my opinion.
By the way, hurling insults is also how Donald Trump separated himself from the other sixteen people running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2015. Jeb Bush, at first the front-runner, was stunned by Trump’s attacks on him and never recovered his verve.
Here’s the truth: scorched-earth personal assaults work in the United States. They are unpleasant, uncharitable, and unseemly, but they work. We are a distracted people, but we’ll focus when vitriol is flying.
Two further things on the Rosie O’Donnell incident. It would come back in a big way to haunt Donald Trump during the campaign.
And he never did file a lawsuit against the woman. Maybe he took my advice after all.
* * *
WHILE IT IS easy to comprehend exactly why Barack Obama does not approve of Donald Trump, the converse is harder to define. Before the birther business, President Obama did not have much to say about Trump. Why would he? Their paths were far apart.
So, it wasn’t personal animus that drove Trump’s disdain for Mr. Obama; it was politics, pure and simple. Donald Trump believes the former president is weak and, worst of all, a bad deal maker.
And in Trump world, there is nothing worse than a guy who gets the short end of a negotiation.
So, early in Barack Obama’s first term, Donald Trump decided that if an untested senator could get elected president, Trump could accomplish that as well because he was smarter and tougher than Obama. All Trump had to do was marginalize the president and his party and then do the exact same thing to the Republicans who would run against him.
Rosie O’Donnell was the warm-up act. The main event would dwarf that.
Donald Trump’s opinion of President Obama has been consistent: he believes the United States lost prestige all over the world and that Iran and China, in particular, took great advantage of Mr. Obama. He also thinks the economy was harmed by Barack Obama’s income-redistribution policies. Finally, he knows he has nothing to lose by criticizing Obama because few who approve of him would ever support Trump.
However, an unwritten rule in history says that presidents should not attack other presidents. But there is certainly frost on the Obama-Trump pumpkin, that I can tell you. You can expect Barack Obama to do everything possible to see that President Trump is denied reelection in 2020.
* * *
AT THE WHITE House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in 2015, President Obama once again had Donald Trump directly in his sights, as Trump sat just a few feet away. I remember feeling very alert as the president began his speech.
“There is one issue on every reporter’s mind, and that is 2016. Already, we’ve seen some missteps.
“It turns out Jeb Bush identified himself as Hispanic back in 2009, which, you know, I understand. It’s an innocent mistake. It reminds me of when I identified myself as American back in 1961.
“Ted Cruz said that denying the existence of climate change made him like Galileo. Now that’s not really an apt comparison. Galileo believed the Earth revolves around the sun. Ted Cruz believes the Earth revolves around Ted Cruz.
“Meanwhile, Rick Santorum announced he would not attend the same-sex wedding of a friend or loved one. To which gays and lesbians across the country responded, ‘That’s not going to be a problem; don’t sweat that one.’
“And Donald Trump is here. Still.”
That was it about Trump. No further zingers. Just six words.
Mr. Obama then went on to say, “Anyway, it’s amazing how time flies. Soon, the first presidential contest will take place, and I for one can’t wait to see who the Koch brothers pick. It’s exciting. Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, who will finally get that red rose?”
No mention of Donald Trump as a possible contender for the White House. President Obama didn’t seem to think it was possible. Nor did most of his adoring fans in the media.
But on that night in April 2015, Mr. Trump knew something that Barack Obama and the press did not know. He didn’t need money to run for president. He didn’t need Republican Party approval, either.
He had all he needed in the chair on which he was seated. He had guile and a game plan that would bring his message directly to the voters. He sensed many Americans were fed up with all the people inhabiting the vast ballroom of the Washington Hilton Hotel that evening—the “swamp” was dressed in tuxedos and gowns.
He also knew he was looked down upon in the room. Nobody had to tell him. But he believed he would soon wreak havoc upon the establishment that mocked and scorned him; that Barack Obama and his pals would soon learn the hard way that underestimating Donald Trump was not a good investment.
The reckoning was less than two months away.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MANHASSET, NEW YORK
MARCH 17, 2019
8 P.M.
Before we chronicle Donald Trump’s turbulent journey through the Republican primaries, including his confrontation with Megyn Kelly, it is important to understand the public speaking style he brought to his campaign—a style that motivated NBC to pay him tens of millions of dollars and then turn around in August 2015, when it was clear that Trump was finished with TV, and fire him for “derogatory” comments about Mexicans.
If you analyze w
hat Mr. Trump says in public, you will see a clear pattern. He’s a stream-of-consciousness kind of guy—that is, if a thought pops into his head, he says it. No filter. No concern about consequences. His verbal approach goes on steroids if Mr. Trump is speaking at a rally where the crowd is approving of what he is saying.
That kind of uninhibited presentation is usually associated with wealthy and powerful individuals who have less to lose than other people. However, in American politics, it is very unusual to hear provocative words about groups of people. Our politicians are almost always rehearsed, which is why few pay attention when they speak.
Here’s a good example. Can you remember one thing that Hillary Clinton said in the 2016 campaign? Just one. Odds are you cannot, because I can’t and I covered her. Mrs. Clinton took the usual liberal line, uttering vague generalities. As a result, her sound bites on TV and radio were sparse.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, was on the electronic media 24/7. And what he said was often so outrageous that the sound bite was played over and over. His dominance on TV and radio stemmed from the fact that he could say just about anything at any time—there was drama to his remarks.
Millions of Americans tuned into Trump’s televised rallies to hear some bombast. And they always got it. Trump put on a verbal show unmatched in the history of presidential campaigns, that I can tell you.
In fact, Donald Trump made Andrew Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt look like Mister Rogers, rhetorically speaking.
Meanwhile, the TV networks didn’t even bother broadcasting most Hillary speeches because few would have watched the dry proceedings.
But there was and is a major downside to shooting from the lip. Verbal mistakes and attacks on tape last forever. They can ambush you after decades of dormancy. Ask Tucker Carlson. The adage is “Everything you say can and will be used against you.” Context and fairness have been effectively banished from media and partisan precincts. Social media, especially Twitter, has robbed the bank of accuracy. The loaded gun filled with out-of-context quotes is now pointed at every person in the political arena.
Donald Trump is a bold but undisciplined speaker. He talks too fast and, many times, does not finish his point, hopping to another thought in midsentence. His mind outraces his tongue.
That results in a joyful field day for his enemies, who can piece together sentence fragments from Trump to make him look villainous. This now happens almost every day.
Here are two very famous examples.
One of Mr. Trump’s main political themes has been that the United States is damaged by a porous southern border. On the campaign trail he addressed this scores of times, sometimes overstating things, as he has a tendency to do.
It’s kind of like the climate change people saying the world will soon collapse: hyperbole to get attention.
In his initial announcement of his candidacy on June 16, 2015, Donald Trump zeroed in on what he believes is a stark danger to public safety: violent foreign nationals who illegally enter the United States.
As the family of Kate Steinle found out after the thirty-two-year-old was killed in San Francisco by a Mexican who had been deported for crimes six times, this has become an acute problem in many parts of the country.
Candidate Trump promised to deal with the situation and used tough words to get his point across.
“When do we beat Mexico at the border? They’re laughing at us, at our stupidity … The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems.”
At this point, the crowd listening to Trump’s speech cheers. This emboldens him as he continues: “It’s true, and these are not the best and the finest. When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people who have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with them. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
The “good people” line wasn’t enough to mitigate the remarks. Donald Trump was immediately branded a racist for disparaging all Mexicans even though his words dealt with the crimes of some undocumented aliens, drug cartels, people smugglers, and corrupt Mexican officials. Those issues are real, but Trump lumped them all together in a generalized verbal stew and was immediately hammered by his enemies in the press.
Mr. Trump himself was surprised by the racist branding but did not back down. A few weeks later he objected to a Mexican American judge hearing one of his civil cases, as he felt the judge might be biased against him because of the June speech: not an illogical supposition. But it gave the anti-Trump forces even more ammunition, and the racist thing took hold in the media.
What Donald Trump does not seem to accept is that political correctness now dictates what can be said in America. If you generalize about a minority group in a negative way, you will be harshly punished. There is no explanation that will stop that. Corporations, in particular, will not tolerate any negativity toward minority people. Period.
Once racism was in play by the media, Donald Trump was on constant defense, a posture he does not like. Then came Charlottesville, Virginia.
* * *
ON SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 2017, a group of white supremacists gathered to protest the proposed removal of a Robert E. Lee statue in the hometown of Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia. The diminishment of the Confederate general is an emotional topic in the South, and the exhibition that Saturday drew civilians engaged in the topic—as well as right-wing and left-wing extremists, some of whom had violent intentions.
The crowd numbered about two thousand. Some folks showed up simply to watch what might unfold, knowing that any demonstration featuring neo-Nazis could become explosive.
Others turned out to make their feelings known about the statue, both pro and con. They were not organized; they simply responded to a controversy in their area. Donald Trump is sympathetic to those who do not want historical statues replaced, believing that American history, both good and bad, should be on display.
Incredibly, despite the rally being so well publicized, the Charlottesville Police, along with the Virginia State Police, were poorly organized, and when violence began, they could not control the situation.
Horribly, one woman was fatally hit when a neo-Nazi purposely plowed his car into a crowd. Nineteen others were hurt in the fracas.
The White House, of course, was aware that the situation had quickly gotten out of control. President Trump’s initial statement said this: “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hated, bigotry, and violence on many sides.”
The use of the words “many sides” became a major problem because the media narrative was already established. The white supremacy movement had caused the violence. What was this “many sides” business? Yes, there were radical leftists on the scene looking for trouble, but so what? The Nazis were responsible.
Under severe media pressure, the president issued another statement to clarify: “Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”
Strong and specific words, but not enough for the Hate Trump media, which, again, was becoming increasingly invested in “the president is a racist” point of view.
Then Mr. Trump reignited the fuse. Answering some press questions, he ad-libbed this: “Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis. And you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group—excuse me, excuse me, I saw the same pictures you did—that were there to protest the taking down of [the Lee statue,] to them a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.”
Armageddon! “Fine people on both sides?” The media went wild. President Trump excusing racists, went the cry. He’s a racist himself!
If you analyze the neo-Nazi part of the ad-lib,
Mr. Trump was apparently trying to say that not all the pro-statue people were sympathetic to the fascists. Trump was attempting to make the point that not everyone present was a racist hater. But his ad-lib was garbled, not precise. And so, as with the Mexican immigrant remarks, he was figuratively hung by his tongue—as the racism brand surfaced again.
It is important to understand that the term racist has now been weaponized by the far left. It is thrown around to inflict harm. That is wrong. In a just society, the racist accusation should never be made unless there is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. Many Americans who consume news are distracted and do not always understand the context of complicated statements. To some in the national media, there are no “fine people” in support of the Robert E. Lee statue. They are all racist if they hold that point of view. So, the president should have condemned them all, not endorsed their “fineness.” But casual news consumers may not be aware of the overall Lee statue issue, thus confusion reigns.
And if anyone dared defend Mr. Trump, or even pointed out context, he or she risked being branded a racist as well.
To be fair, it is understandable why some black Americans and Mexican Americans might be suspicious of Donald Trump’s mind-set. He does not go out of his way to clarify statements that need more definition. In this explosive political time, words must be chosen carefully—or else.
I can state with certainty that Donald Trump did not believe he would be branded a racist when he sought the presidency. That was never in his mind. He actually believed the minority community would like him because he sought to improve the economy for all Americans.
To this day, Trump is perplexed by the racist label.
* * *
WHEN HE BEGAN his presidential campaign on that June afternoon, the media were paramount in Donald Trump’s vision. In the past, Trump had manipulated the media better than anyone else ever had—and now he had a plan.
The United States of Trump Page 10
