Profiles in Ignorance: How America's Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber

by Andy Borowitz

As Schwartz tried to gather material by interviewing his subject, Trump’s microscopic attention span astounded him. Trump, Schwartz later recalled, was “like a kindergartner who can’t sit still in a classroom.” Jane Mayer reported in her 2016 profile of Schwartz that the ghostwriter “regards Trump’s inability to concentrate as alarming in a Presidential candidate. ‘If he had to be briefed on a crisis in the Situation Room, it’s impossible to imagine him paying attention over a long period of time.’ ” As for the flattering portrayal of Trump in The Art of the Deal, Schwartz said, “I created a character far more winning than Trump actually is.” After spending a day watching Trump in action, the writer would tell his wife, “He’s a living black hole!” According to Mayer, “Schwartz’s aim in ‘The Art of the Deal’ was to present Trump as the hero of every chapter, but, after looking into some of his supposedly brilliant deals, Schwartz concluded that there were cases in which there was no way to make Trump look good. So he sidestepped unflattering incidents and details. ‘I didn’t consider it my job to investigate,’ he says.”