Watching Channel 4's interesting documentary "The Mad World of Donald Trump" (2016) yesterday, I found out that when Donald Trump got interviewed by television presenter Selina Scott for an ITV documentary back in '95, he wasn't too happy with some of the facts Scott revealed and began to send her intimidating letters.
[…] My 60-minute documentary exposed how through bluff, bombast and braggadocio, he had convinced the American business community he was far richer than he was, and that while the rest of his rivals were 'losers', he knew how to make the US great.
This ability to blag people into believing he was a commercial genius was most vividly illustrated in a helicopter ride we took over New York. Pointing to the Empire State Building, he told me he owned it.
'What all of it?' I asked.
'Yes, 100 per cent,' he replied.
Later, forgetting he had told me he wholly owned the building, he said he only owned 50 per cent of it which he then considerably reduced. It was the same story with the Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City.
'It's wholly owned by me,' he said. 'Are you sure?' I asked. 'Well maybe 80 per cent,' he demurred. 'Are you quite sure?' I pressed. He replied: 'Well it's actually 50 per cent…'
I showed both assertions in my film with many other inconsistencies with the telling soundtrack It Ain't Necessarily So.
Trump went ballistic. Over many years he sent me a series of intimidating letters branding me 'sleazy, unattractive, obnoxious and boring.' He said I was 'totally uptight', and that I had begged him for a date. In his dreams!
This vicious tirade was often accompanied by fanzine newspaper cuttings which purported to show how much money he was making.
Watch "The Mad World of Donald Trump":
And another great Trump documentary I also watched yesterday is called "Trump: What's the Deal?" (1991), a documentary that Trump managed to never get broadcast, until now. It's writer, journalist Jesse Kornbluth, wrote the following in The Huffington Post:
Our story starts in 1988, in the decade of greed.
Leonard Stern, a New York pet food mogul and real estate developer, decided to finance a series of documentaries about celebrity businessmen. He did a smart thing -- for the first documentary, he chose Donald Trump, who was then riding his bestselling book "The Art of the Deal" and beloved by the media.
I was called in to write the piece after the filmmakers shot the footage. It was easy work, because they had remarkable stuff: Donald working with the mob in Atlantic City, intimidating tenants, hiring illegal immigrant labor, verbally assaulting his family and underlings, trying to move a Florida airport because jets flew directly over his home… the list goes on and on.
Perhaps most interesting from a political point of view, the filmmakers revealed Trump to be the opposite of a small-government conservative. He got his start with his father's money and political connections, and he made money the same way his father did: on the backs of taxpayers.
But most upsetting to Trump was the film's revelation that he hadn't made as much money as he said he had. The producers were among the first to show that his financial empire was built on braggadocio... as recent reports show it to be to this day.
[…]
"Trump: What's the Deal?" was never shown on television. Donald Trump went after Leonard Stern --- in a big way. Lawyer's letters. Threats of lawsuits. Personal attacks.
Stern decided he didn't need the trouble and canceled the series. The producers finished the film. But no broadcaster would touch it. Trump had done his work.
Watch the trailer:
Watch the full documentary:
Featured image: Donald Trump on the cover of New York Magazine taken from "Trump: What's the Deal?".
