Trump

by Donald J. Trump

  A mutual friend, William Fugazy, first mentioned that Lee and I should do a real estate deal together. I think Lee is an extraordinary businessman who has done wonders in turning Chrysler around, and I also like him a great deal personally. So one thing led to another and we began talking about the towers. It’s a substantial investment, and I’m not certain Lee is absolutely sure yet that he wants to go forward. If that’s the case, it occurs to me, he’s done the perfect thing by hiring an attorney I don’t like. And that’s precisely what I intend to tell Sir Charles when he calls me back.

  3:30 P.M. I call my sister, Maryanne Barry, to discuss a recent decision in a lawsuit we are contesting in Atlantic City. Maryanne is a federal court judge in New Jersey, and her husband, John, is a talented attorney I have used on many occasions.

  “Can you believe they ruled against us?” I ask her. Maryanne is very smart, she obviously knows a lot more about the law than I do, and she’s as surprised as I am. I tell her that I’ve arranged to have all the materials from the case sent to John immediately, because I want him to handle the appeal.

  4:00 P.M. I go to our conference room to look at slides of potential Christmas decorations for the atrium in Trump Tower. The spectacular six-story marble atrium has become one of the leading tourist attractions in New York City. More than 100,000 people a week come from all over the world to see it and shop in it, and it’s now a symbol of the Trump Organization. That’s why I still get involved in details like what Christmas decorations we should use.

  I don’t like most of what I’m shown. Finally, I see a huge and magnificent gold wreath for the entrance to the building, and decide we should use just that. Sometimes—not often, but sometimes—less is more.

  * * *

  4:30 P.M. Nicholas Ribis, a New Jersey attorney who handled the licensing of both my Atlantic City casinos, calls to say he’s about to leave for Sydney, Australia, to pursue a deal I’m considering. He tells me it’s a twenty-four-hour flight, and I tell him I’m very glad he’s going instead of me.

  The deal, however, may be worth the trip. The government of New South Wales is in the midst of choosing a company to build and operate what they envision as the world’s largest casino. We’re a front-runner for the job, and Nick is going over to meet with the key government people. He tells me he’ll call from Australia as soon as he has any news.

  5:15 P.M. I call Henry Kanegsberg, the NBC executive in charge of choosing a new site for the network’s headquarters. We’ve been courting NBC for more than a year, trying to get them to move to our West Side yards site—seventy-eight acres along the Hudson River that I bought a year ago and on which I’ve announced plans to build the world’s tallest building.

  I know Henry has just been shown our latest plans for the site, and I’m following up. I mention that Bloomingdale’s is dying to become the anchor store in our shopping center, which will give it real prestige. I also tell him the city seems very excited about our latest plans. Then I say we expect to get our preliminary approvals in the next several months.

  Kanegsberg seems enthusiastic. Before I get off, I also put in a plug for NBC’s locating its offices in the world’s tallest building. “Think about it,” I say. “It’s the ultimate symbol.”

  5:45 P.M. My nine-year-old son, Donny, calls to ask when I’ll be home. I always take calls from my kids, no matter what I’m doing. I have two others—Ivanka, six, and Eric, three—and as they get older, being a father gets easier. I adore them all, but I’ve never been great at playing with toy trucks and dolls. Now, though, Donny is beginning to get interested in buildings and real estate and sports, and that’s great.

  I tell Donny I’ll be home as soon as I can, but he insists on a time. Perhaps he’s got my genes: the kid won’t take no for an answer.

  6:30 P.M. After several more calls, I leave the office and take the elevator upstairs to my apartment in the residential part of Trump Tower. Of course, I have a tendency to make a few more calls when I get home.

  TUESDAY

  9:00 A.M. I call Ivan Boesky. Boesky is an arbitrageur, but he and his wife are also the majority owners of the Beverly Hills Hotel and I’ve just read that he’s decided to sell it. I have no idea when I call that just two weeks from now Boesky will plead guilty to insider trading, and that the real reason he’s eager to sell the hotel is that he needs to raise cash fast.

  My idea is to hire Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, the creators of Studio 54 and the Palladium, to run the Beverly Hills Hotel for me. Steve’s an incredible promoter, and he’d make the hotel hot as hell again. I get Boesky and tell him I’m very interested. He tells me Morgan Stanley and Company is handling the deal, and I will get a call from their people shortly.

  I like Los Angeles. I spent a lot of weekends there during the 1970s, and I always stayed at the Beverly Hills. But I won’t let my personal preferences affect my business judgment. Much as I like the hotel, I’m interested in it only if I can get it for a much better price than they’re now asking.

  9:30 A.M. Alan Greenberg calls. We’ve bought another 100,000 shares of Holiday, and the stock is up another point and a half. Trading is very active. I tell Alan I’ve heard that the top guys at Holiday are in a panic and that they’re holding emergency meetings to discuss how to react to me. Alan says that he thinks Holiday will enact some kind of “poison pill” as a way of fending off any attempts I make at a hostile takeover.

  Our call lasts less than two minutes. That’s one thing I love about Alan: he never wastes time.

  10:00 A.M. I meet with the contractors in charge of building my 2,700-space parking garage and transportation center across the street from Trump Plaza on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City. It’s a $30 million job, and they’re here to give me a progress report. They tell me we’re on schedule and under budget.

  The garage will be ready in time for Memorial Day, 1987—the biggest weekend of the year in Atlantic City—and it’s going to increase our business enormously. Right now we are doing well with virtually no parking. The new lot is located at the end of the main road leading to the Boardwalk, and it’s connected by a walkway to our casino. Anyone who parks in the garage funnels directly into our facility.

  11:00 A.M. I meet with a top New York banker at my office. He’s come to try to solicit business, and we have a general talk about deals I’m considering. It’s funny what’s happened: bankers now come to me, to ask if I might be interested in borrowing their money. They know a safe bet.

  12:15 P.M. Norma comes in and tells me that we have to switch the Wollman Rink press conference from Thursday to Wednesday. Henry Stern, the New York City parks commissioner, has a conflict: on Thursday he is also scheduled to dedicate a new Central Park playground on the Upper West Side, underwritten by Diana Ross, the singer.

  The problem is that there’s no way we can move our concrete-pouring, which was why we called the press conference in the first place. But what the hell? I’ll wing it and things will work out. I’m reluctant to give Henry a hard time. Last week, my security force refused to let him into Wollman without my written permission. This was taking good security a step too far. As you can imagine, Henry wasn’t thrilled.

  12:45 P.M. Jack Mitnik, my accountant, calls to discuss the tax implications of a deal we’re doing. I ask him how bad he thinks the new federal tax law is going to be for real estate, since it eliminates a lot of current real estate write-offs.

  To my surprise, Mitnik tells me he thinks the law is an overall plus for me, since much of my cash flow comes from casinos and condominiums and the top tax rate on earned income is being dropped from 50 to 32 percent. However, I still believe the law will be a disaster for the country, since it eliminates the incentives to invest and build—particularly in secondary locations, where no building will occur unless there are incentives.

  1:30 P.M. I tell Norma to call John Danforth, the Republican senator from Missouri. I don’t know Danforth personally, but he’s one of the few senators who fought hard against the new
tax bill. It’s probably too late, but I just want to congratulate him on having the courage of his convictions, even though it might cost him politically.

  Danforth isn’t in, but his secretary says he’ll call back.

  1:45 P.M. Norma sees an opening between calls, and she comes in to ask me about several invitations. Dave Winfield, the New York Yankee outfielder, has asked me to be the chairman of a dinner to benefit his foundation, which fights drug abuse. I’m already chairing two dinners this month, one for United Cerebral Palsy and the other for the Police Athletic League.

  I don’t kid myself about why I’m asked to speak at or chair so many events. It’s not because I’m such a great guy. The reason is that the people who run charities know that I’ve got wealthy friends and can get them to buy tables. I understand the game, and while I don’t like to play it, there is no graceful way out. However, I’ve already hit up my friends twice this month—and there’s only so many times you can ask people to donate $10,000 for a table. I tell Norma to turn Winfield down, with regrets.

  The other invitation is from the Young President’s Organization, asking me to speak at a dinner they’re having. YPO admits businessmen under the age of forty who are chief executives of their companies. I turned forty two months ago, so in their eyes, I guess I now qualify as an elder statesman.

  Norma also asks me about a half dozen party invitations. I say yes to two One is being given by Alice Mason, the real estate broker who has managed to turn herself into a major socialite by getting the hottest people to come to her parties. The other is a reception for two wonderful people, Barbara Walters of ABC and Merv Adelson, the head of Lorimar-Telepictures, who were married a few months ago in California.

  Frankly, I’m not too big on parties, because I can’t stand small talk. Unfortunately, they’re part of doing business, so I find myself going to more than I’d like—and then trying hard to leave early. A few, fortunately, I enjoy. But more often I will accept an invitation many months in advance, thinking the date is so far off that it will never arrive. When it does, I get mad at myself for having accepted in the first place. By then it’s usually too late to pull out.

  2:00 P.M. I get an idea and call Alan Greenberg again. My idea is based on the fact that if I make a takeover move against Holiday, I have to get licensed as a casino operator in Nevada, where Holiday owns two casinos. “What do you think,” I ask him, “about just selling out Holiday shares right now, taking a profit, and then rethinking a takeover bid after I get licensed?”

  Alan argues for holding tight with what we’ve got. I say okay, for now. I like to keep as many options open as I can.

  2:15 P.M. John Danforth calls back. We have a nice talk, and I tell him to keep up the good work.

  2:30 P.M. I return a call from one of the owners of the Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas. They also own perhaps the best undeveloped site on the Vegas strip. For the right price, I’d consider buying it.

  I like the casino business. I like the scale, which is huge, I like the glamour, and most of all, I like the cash flow. If you know what you are doing and you run your operation reasonably well, you can make a very nice profit. If you run it very well, you can make a ton of money.

  2:45 P.M. My brother, Robert, and Harvey Freeman, both executive vice presidents in my company, stop by to report on a meeting they’ve had that day with Con Edison and executives from NBC about the West Side yards project. Con Ed has a large smokestack on the southern end of the site, and the meeting was to discuss whether the fumes from the stack would dissipate as effectively if a large building goes up adjacent to it.

  Robert, who is two years younger than I am, is soft-spoken and easygoing, but he’s very talented and effective. I think it must be hard to have me for a brother, but he’s never said anything about it and we’re very close. He is definitely the only guy in my life whom I ever call “honey.”

  Robert gets along with almost everyone, which is great for me, since I sometimes have to be the bad guy. Harvey is a different type: no-nonsense, not too big on laughs, but he’s got an absolutely brilliant analytic mind.

  The Con Ed people, I’m happy to hear, told the NBC executives that there is no reason to believe the presence of the NBC building will affect the smokestack. Unfortunately, Con Ed won’t be the last word. Before we can get our approvals, we’ll have to get an independent environmental-impact statement.

  3:15 P.M. I call Herbert Sturz of the City Planning Commission, which will be the first city agency to approve or disapprove our latest plan for the West Side yards. Sturz and his people are scheduled to have a preliminary look on Friday.

  He isn’t in, so I leave a message with his secretary. I just say I’m looking forward to seeing him Friday morning.

  3:20 P.M. Gerald Schrager calls. Jerry’s a top attorney at Dreyer & Traub, one of the best real estate firms in the country, and he’s handled nearly every one of my major deals since I bought the Commodore Hotel back in 1974. Jerry is more than an attorney. He’s an absolute business machine, and he can see through to the essence of a deal as fast as anyone I know.

  We talk about the Holiday Inns situation and several other deals that are in various stages. Like Alan Greenberg, Schrager isn’t big on wasting time. We cover a half dozen subjects in less than ten minutes.

  3:30 P.M. My wife, Ivana, stops in to say good-bye. She’s on her way to Atlantic City, by helicopter. I like to kid her that she works harder than I do. Last year, when I bought my second casino from the Hilton Corporation and renamed it Trump’s Castle, I decided to put Ivana in charge. She’s incredibly good at anything she’s ever done, a natural manager.

  Ivana grew up in Czechoslovakia, an only child. Her father was an electrical engineer and a very good athlete, and he started Ivana skiing very early. By the age of six she was winning medals, and in 1972 she was an alternate on the Czechoslovakian ski team at the Sapporo Winter Olympics. A year later, after graduating from Charles University in Prague, she moved to Montreal and very quickly became one of the top models in Canada.

  We met at the Montreal Summer Olympic Games in August 1976. I’d dated a lot of different women by then, but I’d never gotten seriously involved with any of them. Ivana wasn’t someone you dated casually. Ten months later, in April 1977, we were married. Almost immediately, I gave her responsibility for the interior decorating on the projects I had under way. She did a great job.

  Ivana may be the most organized person I know. In addition to raising three children, she runs our three homes—the apartment in Trump Tower, Mar-a-Lago, and our home in Greenwich, Connecticut—and now she also manages Trump’s Castle, which has approximately 4,000 employees.

  The Castle is doing great, but I still give Ivana a hard time about the fact that it’s not yet number one. I tell her she’s got the biggest facility in town, so by all rights it should be the most profitable. Ivana is almost as competitive as I am and she insists she’s at a disadvantage with the Castle. She says she needs more suites. She isn’t concerned that building the suites will cost $40 million. All she knows is that not having them is hurting her business and making it tougher for her to be number one. I’ll say this much: I wouldn’t bet against her.

  * * *

  3:45 P.M. The executive vice president for marketing at the Cadillac Division of General Motors is on the phone. He’s calling at the suggestion of his boss, John Gretenberger, the president of the Cadillac Motors Division whom I know from Palm Beach. Cadillac, it turns out, is interested in cooperating in the production of a new superstretch limousine that would be named the Trump Golden Series. I like the idea. We set a date to sit down and talk in two weeks.

  4:00 P.M. Daniel Lee, a casino analyst for Drexel Burnham Lambert, stops by with several of his colleagues to discuss being my investment bankers on a deal to purchase a hotel company.

  Michael Milken, the guy who invented junk-bond financing at Drexel, has called me regularly for the last several years to try to get me to bring my business to Drexel. I have no
idea that Drexel is about to get enmeshed in the insider-trading scandal that will soon rock Wall Street. In any case, I happen to think Mike’s a brilliant guy. However, Alan Greenberg is exceptional himself, and I’m loyal to people who’ve done good work for me.

  I hear Lee and his guys out on their deal, but in truth, it doesn’t excite me much. We leave it that I’ll get back to them.

  5:00 P.M. Larry Csonka, former running back for the Miami Dolphins, calls. He has an idea for keeping the USFL alive. He wants to merge it with the Canadian Football League. Larry’s both a bright and a nice guy, and he’s very enthusiastic, but he doesn’t convince me. If the USFL couldn’t get off the ground with players like Herschel Walker and Jim Kelly, how is Canadian football, with a lot of players nobody has heard of, going to help? We’ve got to win in the courts first, to break up the NFL monopoly.

  5:30 P.M. I call Calvin Klein, the designer, to congratulate him. Back when Trump Tower first opened, Klein took a full floor of offices for his new perfume line, Obsession. It did so well that within a year, he expanded to a second floor. Now he’s doing better than ever, and so he’s taking over a third floor.

  I have a lot of admiration for Calvin, and I tell him so. He’s a very talented designer, but he’s also a very good salesman and businessman—and it’s the combination of those qualities that makes him so successful.

  6:00 P.M. I draft a letter to Paul Goldberger, architecture critic of the New York Times. A week ago, in a Sunday column, Goldberger gave a great review to the design of Battery Park City, the new development in lower Manhattan. He also called it “a stunning contrast” to what he claimed we’re doing with the Television City project at the West Side yards. In other words, he killed us.