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March 29 - April 3, 2021
As you read my story, you will no doubt ask yourself if you like me, or if you would act as I did, and the answer will frequently be no to both of those questions. But permit me to make a point: If you only read stories written by people you like, you will never be able to understand Donald Trump or the current state of the American soul.
I confess I never really did understand why pleasing Trump meant so much to me, and others. To this day I don’t have the full answer.
Roy Cohn had played the role of pit bull for Trump until the Boss dropped him like a hot potato in his hour of greatest need when he was dying of AIDS—a fate I should have considered as I insinuated myself into Trump’s world. That night, all I kept thinking was that I didn’t want to disappoint Mr. Trump. That’s how I put it in my mind. Like so many now, in Congress and in the press, I was willing to say and do anything to please Trump.
It was kind of like the old joke—and I loved old jokes; I was a member of New York’s legendary private comedians’ club, The Friars Club, and often attended their celebrity roasts—where the circus worker is shoveling elephant shit and someone asks him why he doesn’t find a better job. What, he asks, and leave show business? That was me: shoveling shit but part of the show.
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In the 1980s, Trump had had a fake spokesperson named John Barron, who would call tabloid reporters to boast about the Boss’s sexual prowess and all the beautiful women he’d dated; it has always seemed more than a little odd that his youngest son’s first name is Barron, though whatever that might indicate, I’ll leave to the shrinks.
The fact that I was willing to literally physically fight and punch another man in the face on behalf of Mr. Trump should give you a sense of the lengths that I was willing to go to please the Boss, much to the ongoing and growing disgust of my wife and kids. But I couldn’t quit working for Trump, I knew—not for the money, as most think, but because by then I was obsessed with him, not as an acolyte or hanger-on, but as a way to stay close to his celebrity and glamor and power. I was the canary in the coal mine for the millions of Americans who are still mesmerized by the power of Trump.
Because here’s the thing: When you sell your soul, you do exactly that: sell your soul.
This is a little-appreciated fact about his path to power. He screams about fake news and reporters being the enemies of the people, like a tin-pot dictator, but the truth was that the media’s psychotic fascination with Trump was one of the biggest—maybe the biggest—cause for his rise to power.
I know that’s not much of an explanation. I know it sounds like a cop out, and hardly the most likable trait a man might offer in his defense. But that is what it feels like to lose control of your mind—you actually give up your common sense, sense of decency, sensitivity, even your grip on reality. It was like having a mental illness: the reality was hard for outsiders to grasp, in all of its dimensions. The fact that I’d departed from reality, in my desire to please the Boss, meant that I really and truly had actually taken leave of my senses. As I said at the start, I was in a cult of
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Trump is a master at getting otherwise seemingly sensible people to enter into his fantasyland because of the fear that failure to do so means banishment. This explains the behavior of many members of Congress and the Cabinet, as displayed daily in the news, terrified of facing a primary or a tweet or a tantrum.
“I don’t want to take money from a super PAC,” Trump said. “A billionaire can’t ask people for five bucks. Maybe I’ll self-fund the primary but do it cheap. I don’t need to spend a lot of money because we’ll get all the free press we want.” Please pause over that final sentence and read it again. And again. And again. Because if you want to understand how Donald J. Trump became president, you have to grasp the essential fact that by far the most important element wasn’t nationalism, or populism, or racism, or religion, or the rise of white supremacy, or strongman authoritarianism. It wasn’t
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If interest in Trump was waning, even just a little bit, he’d yank the chain of the media with an insult or racist slur or reactionary outrage—and there would be CNN and the Times and Fox News dutifully eating out of his hands. Like so much about Trump, if it weren’t tragic, you’d laugh—or cry.
Trump stepped up on the makeshift stage we’d installed and he let rip in an hour-long tirade that was breathtaking in its lack of structure, compassion, or coherence. It was literally a rant, with frequent awkward silences in the press corps like they weren’t entirely sure if this was a publicity stunt, or if Trump was perhaps joking, or out of his mind.
This was the American justice system at work. My lawyers had continually stated that they didn’t see any charges coming, but the truth in this country is that if federal prosecutors want to get you, they will. No matter who you are. No one reading this book should think for a second that they’re immune to these gangster tactics that have been so widely publicized, but continue unabated and unapologetically.
