Trump: An American Dream (2017) s01e03 Episode Script
Citizen Trump
1
[Donald Trump] Citizen Kane was really
about accumulation,
and at the end of the accumulation
you see what happens,
and it’s not necessarily all positive.
I think he learned in Kane
that maybe wealth isn't everything,
because he had the wealth,
but he didn’t have the happiness.
The table getting larger and larger
and larger
with he and his wife getting further
and further apart
as he got wealthier and wealthier.
Perhaps, I can understand that.
[male interviewer] Now, if you could give
Charles Foster Kane advice,
what would you say to him?
Get yourself a different woman.
-[woman] Hey.
-[man] I definitely had it.
[Nikki Haskell] You know,
it was very strange.
I kept hearing Donald was cheating
on Ivana, but I never believed it.
It just, like didn’t seem possible
that that could happen.
I actually got in a couple
of fights with people.
"You don’t know what you're talking about.
Don’t be ridiculous."
So, I told Ivana.
We had had lunch at the Russian Tea Room
and she said, "Well, let's call him."
[telephone ringing]
Then she said, "Nicky has something
she wants to tell you."
And I proudly got on the phone
and I told him.
[inaudible dialogue]
He goes, "That's so sweet of you.
I really appreciate you calling me.
And I appreciate you taking the time."
And you know, "This could never happen."
And he just totally denied it.
But very calm, "Thank you so much
for defending me."
Uh
"You're really a great friend, Nicky."
So long.
Why would he ever have his girlfriend
in the lodge
when his wife and kids
were on the mountain with him?
It just makes no sense.
[Haskell] I was talking to a
girlfriend of mine in Aspen.
She goes, "Oh, my God, you are not
going to believe what's happening.
Ivana is on the ski lift
and she's there with Donald
and Marla Maples, this girl,
you know, he's been going with."
And I'm like, "What?"
She's, like, attacking Ivana
on the slopes, saying to her,
"I want your husband
and he's not in love with you."
And she's crying. And I'm like,
"What? What are you telling me?"
[Sue Carswell] I remember feeling
sorry for Ivana.
She had been sucker-punched
on the slopes in Aspen.
[Dick Clark] Fifteen seconds from now
-it'll be 1990.
-[crowd cheers]
Five, four, three, two, one
Happy New Year!
[crowd cheers]
I would say that the Trump fiasco really
started the '90s off.
My editor called me in and said,
"We want you to cover the Trump beat."
[male reporter] When New Yorkers pick up
their tabloids,
The Daily News and The Post, each morning,
they expect the headlines
to pack a wallop.
[Haskell]
Everything seemed to be fine.
They weren’t fighting.
I thought it was just going to blow over.
And then Liz Smith got it, called her,
or she called her, and that was it.
[inaudible dialogue]
One day
she phoned me out of the blue,
and she was crying
She said, "Liz, would you come
to the Plaza and meet me?"
So, I got dressed, got a taxi,
went to the Plaza
and she threw her arms around me
like I was her best friend.
And she said,
"Donald doesn’t want me anymore."
I began to talk her into letting
me write something.
Finally, I went to him.
And he said, "I don’t want to sleep
with a woman who's had children."
And I said, "But they're your children."
And he said, "I know, I know.
I want to have an open marriage."
Michael Kennedy, Ivana’s lawyer,
called me, and said, "Write the story."
[Carswell] Donald’s in Japan.
Liz Smith plots with Ivana
how to make this come out.
The story breaks when he’s
on the plane coming back.
You didn’t have the internet to get
your word out,
so he had to stay quiet
for a couple of hours.
The papers just exploded.
The world exploded.
Communism is collapsing,
the Germanys are reuniting,
South Africa is changing,
but in Manhattan the story is
"Trump versus Trump."
I bought the Post, which I never do.
[laughs]
[female interviewer] To read about it?
Well, look at the photo. Isn't that great?
[Geraldo Rivera] His divorce from Ivana
was something that was a nuclear event.
[audience cheers, applauds]
[Rivera] If you talked about public people
in awkward, private situations,
this was the most spectacular thing
you could possibly be talking about.
The real-life divorce story you're
about to hear about is bigger
than Dynasty, better than Dallas,
and spicier than General Hospital.
Newspaper circulation is way up,
television news ratings are way up,
because the people just can’t seem
to get enough.
Good evening. On this Valentine’s day,
the abandoned wife in what's being billed
as "the divorce of the decade"
made her first public appearance.
[crowd clamors]
[male presenter] Ivana Trump,
the estranged wife
of real estate tycoon, Donald Trump, kept
a date with the ladies who lunch today,
attracting a traffic-stopping press hoard
outside the swanky,
mid-town restaurant, La Grenouille.
[crowd clamors]
[Smith]
People were screaming and shouting,
"Give it to him, Ivana. Make him pay."
[crowd clamors]
[Smith] Everybody had been invited
to that birthday party,
all of her best friends, her own mother
her mother-in-law
Nobody knew how to act at the party.
His mother made a real attempt
to make the birthday party normal.
[Carswell] I think they respected
Donald’s marriage to Ivana.
And I think that
they were embarrassed by this.
Donald had gone astray.
We had a lot of laughs and so forth and
-And nobody-- Nobody spoke ill of Donald.
-That's right.
-[female interviewer] Say that again.
-Nobody spoke ill of Donald.
Oh, in fact, I don’t think
his name was mentioned until now.
Who is this?
That is Donald Trump’s mother
in the backseat of the limousine
after yesterday's lunch.
What a wonderfully civil thing
for this woman to do. She shows up.
She was great. She's a wonderful lady.
And she got up and said, "Well, I guess
I'm sort of the villain here today.
But I hate the word 'in-law.'
I don’t consider Ivana my in-law.
I consider her my daughter."
[Haskell] Twenty-eight days
on the front page of the paper,
Donald was having problems in business
and that was a big thing.
It was just awful. It was terrible.
[female announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,
I have the high honor
and the great privilege
of introducing Chelsea Clinton,
Hillary Clinton, and our governor
and the next president
of the United States, Bill Clinton.
[crowd cheers]
[Bill Clinton]
I want to especially thank
Hillary and Chelsea for taking this
big step on our life’s journey together.
Hillary for being my wife
and friend and partner
For the love we've shared
and the work she's done
to make life better for the children
and families of this state
I ask you to join with us today.
I believe that together
we can make America great again.
[crowd applauds, cheers]
[inaudible dialogue]
The man who says money means nothing
to him except as a means of keeping score
may be hurting on his favorite scoreboard.
Suddenly there is talk
that the Trump financial empire is shaky.
The most damaging of such suggestions was
published this week in Forbes magazine.
It says that you have a debt
of about 3.2 billion
and that you are losing money at the rate
of 40 million dollars a year. True?
Forbes has been after me for years,
uh, consistently after me.
They took properties
and devalued the properties.
They say the Plaza Hotel is not worth
what everybody knows its worth.
It’s a total hatchet job.
But it’s all borrowed money.
You have to service the debt.
Do you know my books?
Why do you say it's borrowed money?
-Well, if it's not, tell me.
-What right do you have to say--
-Do you know about borrowed money?
-Let me tell you what I know.
All I know is what people write about you.
I haven't seen your books.
-What they write is--
-See, if you were smart,
-you'd want to see my books.
-I'm not competent
-to look over your books.
-I can see that you're not--
An accounting firm
to look over--
Truly, I can see that you're not competent
to look at the books.
What happens is, every asset has--
I'm sure you're not gonna play that.
Every-- But now you might,
because I said I'm sure you won't.
Every asset-- Every asset has some debt.
-Okay, how much are you worth?
-I have absolutely no idea.
-[reporters clamoring]
-[bodyguard] Come on, back off.
-[Trump] You're kidding?
-[bodyguard] Back off.
I mean, the proof is, I've-- I've got
Donald Trump’s
confidential financial statement,
-okay? I'll tell you what it says.
-[man] I guess it’s not confidential
-if you've got it--
-No, we've printed it
-in the Inquirer. He's got two--
-[audience laughs]
Philadelphia Inquirer.
He's got $210 million dollars
in cash and stocks.
You dig back into the back of it
and you find out that he's borrowed
from a dozen banks a hundred
and ninety million of them.
It's all borrowed money.
I think that he was really very nimble
in his response to this crisis.
He was highly leveraged,
he had all kinds of debt,
and he was trying to take the notoriety
and make the notoriety affect
his bottom line in a positive way.
He wanted to make money off it.
Trump’s problem is that he doesn’t have
enough cash at the moment
to meet
all the interest payments he's got.
And do we know what we're talking about?
And in a capitalist marketplace,
where so much is dependent
upon what the customer thinks about you,
can media poison
the minds of the customer to the extent
that you are unfairly victimized?
I have a brilliant answer
to this question
[audience laughs]
but I will not have time to give it.
I'm sorry. It seems coincidental,
but I want to know how much all this
has to do with Marla Maples,
'cause all of a sudden it seems like
America hates Donald Trump.
[reporters clamoring]
[male reporter] Mr. Trump, can you tell us
why you're suing your wife?
He would either release
something negative about Ivana,
or, more likely,
something positive about himself.
"I will get through this.
I will survive this.
I had no idea this was happening,
but life goes on."
[male reporter 2]
Did Ivana violate the agreement?
[reporter] Tell me what you think
of the St. Regis hotel.
[reporter 2]
Do you feel she violated the agreement?
[Trump] The scrutiny has become so much.
I'm not a politician.
I'm not in public office.
I'm not under the eye in theory.
The story is a story about two people
that grow apart,
and frankly, I don’t think it should
be covered the way it's being covered.
[male reporter] You'd think he hates this
unwanted attention, but maybe not.
Mr. Trump, this maestro of publicity,
has been fueling the flames himself,
often placing phone calls
to influential columnists.
For the tabloids, it was Cindy Adams
versus Liz Smith,
Daily News versus the New York Post.
Ivana was tied in with Liz Smith
and gave all her information
to the Daily News
whereas Cindy Adams was tied in
with Donald,
and he fed everything to Cindy,
or just called them directly,
the New York Post,
and put things on the cover.
What special quality does he have that,
maybe, viewers don't know about?
It's funny. I always tell Donald,
I said, "I wish that you understood
how adorable you are
just being your true, true self.
You don't have to put on a red tie
and a blue suit to be likable.
It's what's beneath--"
[Larry King] He's likable.
People who work for him like him.
People that work for him, friends like,
you know, you that know him personally,
it's hard not to like him.
Well, he's just very supportive
and a very, very close friend of mine.
And we're just not really making any
big steps right now,
we're just enjoying
each other's company, when we can.
[interviewer] I was talking to
Miss Gilpatrick earlier, she said
Do you remember the great line
of George Saunders about Zsa Zsa?
He said when Zsa Zsa was through with him,
she "tossed me aside
like a squeezed lemon."
I think Marla might find herself
like a squeezed lemon.
First tonight, can real estate magnate
Donald Trump
keep his financial empire afloat?
Joining us now, Abraham Wallach,
senior vice president
of First Capital Management.
Mr. Wallach, at the mercy of the market,
speaking as a real estate man,
how much can Donald Trump blame
his current troubles
on the state of the real estate market?
Yes, he can blame market conditions
to some extent
uh, but I think the reality is
if you pay too much for properties,
and if your ego is as large
as his was-- is,
and you just buy everything in sight
part of the blame has to squarely rest
in your own lap.
Now that we see the larger picture,
three and a half billion dollars of debt,
properties that in the near term
have no chance of achieving
the kinds of revenue
necessary to cover debt
I did something that Donald doesn’t like.
I told the truth.
Just being a champ.
[Abraham Wallach]
Within a week of being on that program,
the door man rings me up
and he says someone's down here
and this man dumps a pile
of papers that thick,
and I start to look at them, and it says,
"Trump versus Wallach,
250 million dollars."
And I said, "Oh, my God, I'm being sued
by Trump for 250 million dollars,"
defamation of character, lies You know,
just every word you could think of
in a lawsuit was there.
Norma, can I have my calls, please?
Calls, please. Thank you.
[Wallach] Our firm used the same law firm
that Donald did.
The general partner of the firm,
calls, and he says,
"So long as you don’t say anything more
about him in the news,
he'll drop the lawsuit."
"But he wants one thing."
I said, "What's that?"
"He wants to talk to you."
I arrived a little early.
I was sitting there
slumped in this velvet couch,
taking in the panoramic view
of Central Park.
This giant. He--
I didn’t realize how tall he was.
He stuck his hand out and I stood up,
I shook his hand,
and he couldn’t have been nicer.
It’s as if all that had happened was
nothing, never happened, never existed.
[inaudible dialogue]
He said, "Go back and tell them
you're leaving.
I want you to start here on Monday."
I was sort of bitten by the Trump bug.
I quit the other job and Monday morning
I appeared at Trump's offices.
Why did Donald call me?
I think he saw me as someone
who could in some way help him.
He was not sure where or how,
but somehow help him.
[crowd cheers]
[male reporter] It’s been quite a week
for Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton.
His problem?
Long-rumored allegations of marital
infidelity finally surfaced
in a supermarket tabloid.
[cheering fades]
Fourteen percent of the registered voters
in America
said they wouldn’t vote
for a candidate who's had an affair.
But what does that mean? That means
86% of the American people
either don’t think its relevant
to presidential performance
or look at whether a person
looking at all the facts
is the best person to serve.
You know, I'm not sitting here,
some little woman,
standing by my man
like Tammy Wynette.
I'm sitting here because I love him,
and I respect him,
and I honor what he's been through
and what we have been through together
and, you know, if that's not enough
for people, then heck, don’t vote for him.
[male reporter]
With all of the gossip and innuendo,
Ivana Trump has never gone public
with her side.
Tonight, with Barbara,
she breaks her silence
And then came Christmas, Aspen
can you tell us what happened?
It’s still hard, isn't it?
It’s tough.
[Ivana Trump] I did find out first time
on the telephone,
when I did pick the phone
in the living room
and Donald did pick the phone
in the bedroom.
-[Barbara Walters] In Aspen?
-In Aspen.
And he spoke to a mutual friend of ours,
and he was talking about Marla,
and I really didn’t understand.
I never heard a name
like that in my life,
and I came to Donald and said,
"Who is Mula?"
And he said, "Well, that's a girl that's
going after me for last two years."
And I said, "Is that serious?"
And he said,
"Well, she is just going after me."
I think marriage
is an incredible institution.
I think it’s a great institution.
I told you my parents were married,
-have been married, are married--
-You’ve come from married stock.
-I come from married stock.
-People stay married in the Trumps.
You’re talking about 50 years
of marriage with my mother and father,
-that’s a long time--
-Your brother married a long time?
My-- Robert is happily married,
and my family's generally happily married,
so, I’m not one that loves
the concept of divorce.
In fact, just the opposite,
I hate the concept of divorce.
I hate everything it represents.
Um It really was my decision.
Um, I tried for two months, as you know,
until February.
I tried to live with the idea that I had
been cheated on and I had been lied to.
And-- And I decided that that's not a life
which I want to live.
I never could trust a man
who'd cheat on me.
Do you think that Donald is capable
of being faithful to one woman?
I don’t think so.
I made a big mistake. I put Ivana
into the business a little bit,
and she did a very good job,
and she ran the Castle,
and then she ran the Plaza,
and she did a nice job.
The divorce from Ivana
taught him a great lesson.
Ivana and I were
having problems for years.
She's a wonderful woman. But we were
having problems like everybody else.
I mean, we were having problems.
He proved that he couldn’t have
his reputation destroyed.
She'd come home every night.
"Here’s how we are doing.
We are doing this, we are doing that."
It became like I'm married
to a business partner
and it really hurt the marriage.
He learned he could ultimately get away
with anything.
[male reporter]
Donald Trump is running short of cash.
Four major New York banks
have been negotiating directly with Trump,
and may force him to sell key properties.
In a statement issued yesterday,
Trump insisted his investments
remain excellent values.
He is confident that he and his bankers
will work things out,
but there is a problem.
Benjy, hi, what’s going on?
[Wallach] I signed on to work for Trump
just as the women and children
were being led to the life boats
on the Titanic.
People were running from one room
to the other,
lawyers were all over the place
Accountants doing all kinds
of analyses and projections.
Everybody was petrified,
and they thought the ship would go under.
All right, find out, Lou, okay?
Thanks, Lou.
Hello. Jack, how are you?
What's going on?
Part of me was scared,
because of all the chaos
I saw going on,
but part of me was comfortable because
I said, "Nobody else can do this."
But do you think you come out okay
at that number? You really do, huh?
[Wallach]
Donald knew how to use the system.
The banks had no choice
but to stick with him.
I'll tell you what, Bernie, come in
and see me. Let’s you and I talk,
and then we'll see--
we'll go from that stage.
Does that sound all right?
Has Donald dumped Marla for Carla?
Well, those who've been following
the soap opera escapades
of billionaire developer Donald Trump
are being treated
to yet another chapter tonight.
Marla, who was the other woman
when Trump was married to Ivana,
apparently was told by the Donald
to pack up and move out
of their posh Upper East Side apartment
they were sharing.
And the new woman in Trump’s life
is an Italian model.
[Carswell]
Now he's dumping Marla for Carla?
And they rhyme? It was just too much.
I call up Donald Trump’s office and
I get his assistant Norma on the phone,
and I said, "What is going on, Norma?
What is going on?"
And she said, "Darlin', I'll get you
a call back in five minutes or so."
And she was true to her word,
five minutes later John Miller called.
[Carswell on recording] Good morning.
What’s your name again?
-[man on recording] John Miller.
-And you work with Donald?
Yes, that's correct.
John Miller, what kind
of comment is coming from Donald?
He really decided that he wasn't--
You know, he didn’t want to…
make a big commitment…
He didn’t want to make a commitment.
He really thought it was too soon.
He's coming out of a, you know, marriage,
that, uh And he's starting to do
tremendously well financially.
'Cause, you know,
there’s a real estate depression
in the United States,
and he's probably doing…
as well as anybody there is.
[man on recording]
I'm sort of new here. And I'm--
[Carswell] What's your position?
[man] I'm handling PR.
He gets so much of it.
[Carswell] Yeah.
You know, I had talked to Donald
on the phone a couple of times.
Call me over the weekend.
I want to talk to you, okay?
I thought, "It's just so weird
that he hired someone
who sounds just like him."
[man] Now off the record, I could tell you
that he didn’t care if he got bad PR
until he got his divorce finished.
And I remember thinking,
"I gotta keep him on the phone."
[Carswell] What's going to happen?
Is she being asked to leave,
-or is she going to be allowed to stay?
-[man] Well, he treats everybody well,
-and you know Donald, but he's a--
-Yeah. No, I have met him.
-Have you met him?
-Yes.
[man] He's a good guy
and he's not going to hurt anybody.
One article said, "He's going to throw her
out of the apartment,"
it's total nonsense.
Um, he's somebody that has
a lot of options and frankly…
he gets called by everybody in the book
in terms of women.
I mean they call, they just call.
Actresses, people that you write about
just call to see
if they can go out with him.
Madonna called
and wanted to go out with him,
that I can tell you.
[Carswell] As soon as I got off the phone
with John Miller,
I ran down the hall and I said,
"Oh, my God!
You gotta listen to this."
I said, "I think it's Donald."
Everybody in the office was listening
in on this tape, and they're like,
“Oh, my God!
You gotta get confirmation."
So, I called Cindy Adams
from the New York Post and she's like,
"What is he doing? That's Donald."
And then I called Marla,
and I was like, Marla there is something
I need to play for you.
[man on recording] Marla wants to be back
with him, but he just feels it's too soon.
When he makes the decision,
that will be a very lucky woman.
Off the record, he probably thought
Marla wasn't the right one.
So, now he has somebody else
named Carla.
Then she dropped Mick Jagger for Donald,
and that's where it is right now.
[Carswell]
She just cries when she hears this tape.
If you are as involved as they were
at this time, it was devastating news.
I don’t know what he was thinking
about Carla, because she has come out
and said that she had never had
anything to do with him.
So this is all very imaginary.
She didn’t leave Mick Jagger
for Donald Trump.
Right after she hears the tape,
Marla gets the hell out of town,
out of dodge.
Donald kept trying to move her back
and she was like, "I'm not having
anything to do with you anymore, Donald."
I had to hurt Marla’s feelings,
but it’s a good thing she found out,
to see who he really was.
[show host] He has seen his life,
the good and the bad,
splashed all across the front pages
of New York City tabloids,
and sometimes you get the feeling
that he doesn’t even mind
the notoriety one little bit.
As a single man once again, he may be
the most eligible bachelor in America.
Please welcome Donald Trump.
[crowd applauds]
Welcome.
Just this past weekend,
you had a big party in Palm Beach.
You invited just a few of your
close friends like the Miami Dolphin
-and the Buffalo Bill cheerleaders.
-[audience laughs]
Take a look at the monitors, if you will.
-Party at Trump Mansion! Woo!
-Yes!
[party guests cheering, exclaiming]
[indistinct chatter]
At that period, Donald Trump’s life
was going through all kinds of turmoil.
[cheering]
He was emphasizing his playboy-ness,
rather than the fact that his real estate
and gambling empires were going through
very turbulent times.
Woo!
It’s been a great year for me, and it's
been one of my best years, in a sense.
Yeah, but you are seen in the company
of lots of beautiful women, Donald.
I like beautiful women.
You're very beautiful.
This is really a beautiful woman.
[audience cheers, applauds]
Way to deflect the reporter's questions,
right?
[male reporter] Well, the name Taj Mahal
means "crown of the palace."
[male photographer] A still! A still.
[male reporter] Only Trump’s crown is
in hock tonight.
Trump has been forced
to put his Taj Mahal Hotel
and casino in Atlantic City
into bankruptcy,
because he couldn’t pay his debts.
[female reporter]
After weeks of negotiations,
at the press conference Trump seemed
pleased with the deal.
[Trump] I see so many people here
for this, I can’t believe it.
One of these days you'll be writing
about other people too,
but I think it’s going to turn out,
Chris, to be a very positive
It was a long, hard negotiation.
Donald understands that most reporters
accurately quote what they're told,
but they really don’t know
what they're writing about.
I think it's wonderful the way everybody
pulled together and worked
on really taking a building that is doing,
as Mr. Ross said, record numbers.
And once his story is out there,
then anything else
is just a counter story.
Uh, and we're very happy that
this all worked out,
and I think that over the long term,
it's gonna prove out to be
a great victory for everybody.
[male reporter] Mr. Ross, you said--
Rather, Mr. Miller said that
this is a framework for an agreement.
-I'm wondering if
-[reporters fade out]
All sorts of people
who were owed money got stiffed.
[man] Down! Down! Stay down.
[man]
When the Trump Taj Mahal went bad
it didn’t go bad by itself.
It took two other casinos and it took
thousands of individuals down with it.
Forget the debt holder.
Those people that loaned him that money
assumed that risk.
That's their problem.
But the suppliers,
and the small businesses
that provided services,
provided equipment, provided supply,
expected to be paid at the end of 30 days.
A lot of businesses in the Atlantic City
area went out of business,
because they could not sustain
the loss from the monies
they couldn’t collect from Trump.
And from that day to this,
he has never once publicly expressed
regret for that kind of damage.
[male photographer]
Marla, over here, please.
-[male photographer 2] Marla!
-[male photographer 3] Marla! Over here!
[photographer] How do you feel?
Mr. Trump, how do you feel?
Great.
[female reporter]
Trump was in the delivery room
for the birth of his fourth child.
He even cut her umbilical cord.
-Thank you!
-Thank you.
[scattered applause]
[male reporter] In a dramatic,
stunning form reversal,
struggling tycoon and media ring master
Donald Trump has asked Marla Maples
to marry him.
Trump left his headquarters, went across
the street to Harry Winston jewelers,
and bought a ring similar to this one.
[Trump] We really anticipated getting
married and having a baby,
not having a baby and getting married.
Why didn’t you marry her right away
when you found out she was pregnant?
-Indecision. Really, indecision.
-Indecision?
To me, it’s a more difficult decision.
You know, it’s in many respects
a much bigger decision.
It's an irrevocable deal, theoretically.
Well, it really is.
In theory, it’s an irrevocable deal.
[crowd cheering]
[photographers clamoring]
[male reporter] Celebrity guests swarm
New York’s Plaza Hotel for the big events.
The crowd was the expected
mix of beautiful people,
business leaders and politicians.
And the hype was pervasive.
[Wallach] The very first function I was
invited to was to Donald’s wedding,
and it was a very grand affair.
Huh? What did I get for their wedding?
A toaster!
[female interviewer] A toaster!
[Wallach] He knows all these politicians,
all these Hollywood stars.
[photographers yelling] O.J.!
I mean, the man just knows everybody.
They've gone through a lot of turmoil,
and I think everybody in the country
believes that maybe their relationship
could work if this relationship will work,
you know, for all the things
that they've gone through,
and I think this will work.
[photographers yelling] Trump! Trump!
[male photographer] Mrs. Trump!
[woman] Donald would not have married her,
had his father not pressured him.
He said, "She has a child.
Now you have to marry her."
[indistinct chatter]
[female interviewer] Can you tell us what
got you to pop the question?
Oh
Well, I think it was just the relationship
that was happening,
and it just feels really good.
-See you later. Have a good time.
-And you always find the time. [laughs]
[woman] Donald, give Marla a kiss!
[male reporter] When it was over, Donald
and Marla treated fans to the royal wave.
[Wallach] It was in the Plaza Hotel.
It cost several hundred thousand dollars
and he charged everything to Citibank,
who had the mortgage on the building.
Even though it had huge mortgages,
he was still the owner,
so he just charged everything.
For years, they were hounding him
to pay the cost of the wedding.
[David Cay Johnston] The Trump
shuttle airline goes into bankruptcy.
It’s a complete disaster.
The Trump Plaza Hotel is taken over
by a Saudi Prince,
at a loss to Donald.
And so, a whole series of properties
fall out of Donald’s hands
over this period of time.
[male reporter] Trump has put another
of his trophies up for sale, his yacht.
[Johnston]
But Donald still can’t repay his debts.
American banks won't loan him
money anymore.
So, Donald starts getting
money from other sources.
Trump creates the only
publicly traded company
he's ever been involved with.
Make a six bid for 20,000
For those interested
in following the stock,
Trump made it characteristically easy.
He trades under the symbol of DJT.
Donald J. Trump.
Donald Trump understands
that if he creates this public persona,
that's what people will see.
You sell people what they want to hear.
[Selina Scott] We were following Trump
in Britain at that stage.
I think he thought, well, it might burnish
his image a little bit.
He wanted to send a message
out to his potential investors.
If he was considered to be going down,
well, he had a message
for them that he wasn't.
[Trump]
Here's our new partner in the deal,
the legendary Selina Scott from Europe.
-Hello.
-[Scott] Oh--
[Trump] See you in five minutes. [laughs]
-Hi, guys.
-Ah, she’s beautiful.
Now, this is just a small group.
Philip Johnson
-[Scott] Yes.
-[Trump] also a legend.
Selina is the biggest in Europe.
You know about that?
Everybody knows Selina Scott.
[laughter]
He saw himself as a deal maker.
And how do you make sure
that you come across in the best way,
that people are going to look at you
and think,
"Here's a guy who knows what he is doing"?
Hey Rich, get closer.
When you get next to a building
this high, it’s a scary thing.
You know, to me,
that's the symbol of lot of things.
That's the ultimate symbol.
It so much represents the greatness
of New York and the power of New York.
It was trying to impress me
so that the television cameras
could pull out from him
this image of a man who is in charge,
in control, is gonna survive.
He was very much in awe of his mother.
[Scott]
Donald’s mother, Mary McLeod,
a dark-haired beauty
from the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides,
first met Fred Trump when she was just 18.
What did she see
in the young builder from the Bronx?
Why is it ever about the guys
we fall in love with?
It's special, right? He was wonderful
and a very eligible--
the most eligible bachelor
in New York, so there.
[Scott] Donald obviously asked her
to come and talk.
He needed his mom there to act
as his witness
to his good nature,
and his ability, and all the rest of it.
[Scott]
Fred and Mary had five children.
Donald was the Trump’s third born.
His older brother Fred apparently
found it hard to satisfy
his father’s aspirations.
Alcohol became the easy way out.
[Trump] I had a brother who was
a great guy, handsome, beautiful guy.
And Fred died at a relatively young age,
in his 40s, of pure and simple alcoholism.
I mean, he just drank like a fish.
He just drank and drank.
It’s a drug. It’s a horrible drug.
[Scott] This was success for Donald,
to display his mother in this way.
To say, "Look how far my mother has come,
and look what she's given birth to."
[laughs]
Did you at any stage in that think,
"He really has bitten off
more than he can chew.
He's really gone and done it now"?
-No, no, never.
-[Scott] Never?
I knew. I just knew he'd come back.
[Trump] This is just the right time
for this industry.
We’re really happy,
and this is a very exciting day.
[Johnston]
They sell the stock at a very good price.
[male reporter] Not bad work for a man
whose casinos have gone into bankruptcy.
[Johnston] That was sort of
an astonishing development.
I mean, this is a man who had
a track record of not paying his bills,
of not managing his enterprises well.
Wall Street
has a lot of respect for Trump.
[Johnston] Donald gets paid at least
82 million dollars,
and plus, 50 million dollars is used to
pay off debts he personally guaranteed.
How could this happen?
[audience cheering, applauding]
He's a guy who has engineered
one of the biggest turnarounds
in modern business history.
People were taking away control
of your various casinos
and your far-flung empire,
your real estate developments
had stalled.
As you sit there today,
give me a one-word answer,
how are things going business-wise?
It’s probably been the best year
of my life from a business standpoint.
One word? I don’t know.
Can we say "luck"? Maybe "luck."
[Rivera] "Luck" is a good word.
We'll be right back.
[audience cheering]
It increased his image as this man
who was all-powerful
and can do anything
and has the Midas touch.
And Donald Trump is masterful
at exploiting these things.
That's why he is such a great con-artist,
the greatest con-artist
in the history of the world.
[female reporter] It is Splitsville
for Donald Trump and Marla Maples.
They've decided to separate
after three-and-a-half years of marriage,
and say they hope
to remain friends.
"Often, I'll tell friends whose wives
are constantly nagging them
about this or that, that they' re
better off cutting their losses.
When a man has to endure
a woman who is not supportive
and complains constantly
about his not being home
or being attentive enough,
he will not be successful
unless he is able to cut the cord."
-That's true, I mean, I think that--
-It doesn’t say much
for trying to make
a marriage work, does it?
It doesn’t. It's very cold
and I hate saying it, but it’s true.
I've seen people
that are married to women
that, you know, their lives--
They just will not be successful.
Do you think people are going
to look at you as someone
they should take marriage advice from?
[laughs] That's a tough question.
[Trump] In real life, I believe
that wealth does, in fact,
isolate you from other people.
It’s a protective mechanism.
You have your guard up
much more so than you would
if you didn’t have wealth.
[clattering]
[Trump] There was
a great rise in Citizen Kane
and there was a modest fall.
[clattering, shattering]
[Trump] The fall wasn't a financial fall.
The fall was a personal fall
but it was a fall nevertheless.
So, you had the highs
and you had the lows.
Rosebud.
A lot of people don’t really understand
the significance of it.
I'm not sure if anybody understands
its significance,
but I think the significance
is bringing a lonely, rather sad figure
back into his childhood.
[Scott] The youngest
of the family, Robert,
also had problems as a child
coping with the acquisitive Donald.
[Mary Anne Trump] I remember he used to be
in the playroom building with blocks,
and Robert got building blocks
at the same time,
so they had a lot of building blocks
[chuckles] and Donald borrowed Robert's.
Robert willingly gave the blocks
to his brother to build,
but Donald glued the blocks together.
-He never gave the blocks back?
-Oh, no.
Of course not, he couldn’t,
they were glued in one [laughs]
-Glued in one big building. [laughs]
-[Scott laughs]
[Donald Trump] Citizen Kane was really
about accumulation,
and at the end of the accumulation
you see what happens,
and it’s not necessarily all positive.
I think he learned in Kane
that maybe wealth isn't everything,
because he had the wealth,
but he didn’t have the happiness.
The table getting larger and larger
and larger
with he and his wife getting further
and further apart
as he got wealthier and wealthier.
Perhaps, I can understand that.
[male interviewer] Now, if you could give
Charles Foster Kane advice,
what would you say to him?
Get yourself a different woman.
-[woman] Hey.
-[man] I definitely had it.
[Nikki Haskell] You know,
it was very strange.
I kept hearing Donald was cheating
on Ivana, but I never believed it.
It just, like didn’t seem possible
that that could happen.
I actually got in a couple
of fights with people.
"You don’t know what you're talking about.
Don’t be ridiculous."
So, I told Ivana.
We had had lunch at the Russian Tea Room
and she said, "Well, let's call him."
[telephone ringing]
Then she said, "Nicky has something
she wants to tell you."
And I proudly got on the phone
and I told him.
[inaudible dialogue]
He goes, "That's so sweet of you.
I really appreciate you calling me.
And I appreciate you taking the time."
And you know, "This could never happen."
And he just totally denied it.
But very calm, "Thank you so much
for defending me."
Uh
"You're really a great friend, Nicky."
So long.
Why would he ever have his girlfriend
in the lodge
when his wife and kids
were on the mountain with him?
It just makes no sense.
[Haskell] I was talking to a
girlfriend of mine in Aspen.
She goes, "Oh, my God, you are not
going to believe what's happening.
Ivana is on the ski lift
and she's there with Donald
and Marla Maples, this girl,
you know, he's been going with."
And I'm like, "What?"
She's, like, attacking Ivana
on the slopes, saying to her,
"I want your husband
and he's not in love with you."
And she's crying. And I'm like,
"What? What are you telling me?"
[Sue Carswell] I remember feeling
sorry for Ivana.
She had been sucker-punched
on the slopes in Aspen.
[Dick Clark] Fifteen seconds from now
-it'll be 1990.
-[crowd cheers]
Five, four, three, two, one
Happy New Year!
[crowd cheers]
I would say that the Trump fiasco really
started the '90s off.
My editor called me in and said,
"We want you to cover the Trump beat."
[male reporter] When New Yorkers pick up
their tabloids,
The Daily News and The Post, each morning,
they expect the headlines
to pack a wallop.
[Haskell]
Everything seemed to be fine.
They weren’t fighting.
I thought it was just going to blow over.
And then Liz Smith got it, called her,
or she called her, and that was it.
[inaudible dialogue]
One day
she phoned me out of the blue,
and she was crying
She said, "Liz, would you come
to the Plaza and meet me?"
So, I got dressed, got a taxi,
went to the Plaza
and she threw her arms around me
like I was her best friend.
And she said,
"Donald doesn’t want me anymore."
I began to talk her into letting
me write something.
Finally, I went to him.
And he said, "I don’t want to sleep
with a woman who's had children."
And I said, "But they're your children."
And he said, "I know, I know.
I want to have an open marriage."
Michael Kennedy, Ivana’s lawyer,
called me, and said, "Write the story."
[Carswell] Donald’s in Japan.
Liz Smith plots with Ivana
how to make this come out.
The story breaks when he’s
on the plane coming back.
You didn’t have the internet to get
your word out,
so he had to stay quiet
for a couple of hours.
The papers just exploded.
The world exploded.
Communism is collapsing,
the Germanys are reuniting,
South Africa is changing,
but in Manhattan the story is
"Trump versus Trump."
I bought the Post, which I never do.
[laughs]
[female interviewer] To read about it?
Well, look at the photo. Isn't that great?
[Geraldo Rivera] His divorce from Ivana
was something that was a nuclear event.
[audience cheers, applauds]
[Rivera] If you talked about public people
in awkward, private situations,
this was the most spectacular thing
you could possibly be talking about.
The real-life divorce story you're
about to hear about is bigger
than Dynasty, better than Dallas,
and spicier than General Hospital.
Newspaper circulation is way up,
television news ratings are way up,
because the people just can’t seem
to get enough.
Good evening. On this Valentine’s day,
the abandoned wife in what's being billed
as "the divorce of the decade"
made her first public appearance.
[crowd clamors]
[male presenter] Ivana Trump,
the estranged wife
of real estate tycoon, Donald Trump, kept
a date with the ladies who lunch today,
attracting a traffic-stopping press hoard
outside the swanky,
mid-town restaurant, La Grenouille.
[crowd clamors]
[Smith]
People were screaming and shouting,
"Give it to him, Ivana. Make him pay."
[crowd clamors]
[Smith] Everybody had been invited
to that birthday party,
all of her best friends, her own mother
her mother-in-law
Nobody knew how to act at the party.
His mother made a real attempt
to make the birthday party normal.
[Carswell] I think they respected
Donald’s marriage to Ivana.
And I think that
they were embarrassed by this.
Donald had gone astray.
We had a lot of laughs and so forth and
-And nobody-- Nobody spoke ill of Donald.
-That's right.
-[female interviewer] Say that again.
-Nobody spoke ill of Donald.
Oh, in fact, I don’t think
his name was mentioned until now.
Who is this?
That is Donald Trump’s mother
in the backseat of the limousine
after yesterday's lunch.
What a wonderfully civil thing
for this woman to do. She shows up.
She was great. She's a wonderful lady.
And she got up and said, "Well, I guess
I'm sort of the villain here today.
But I hate the word 'in-law.'
I don’t consider Ivana my in-law.
I consider her my daughter."
[Haskell] Twenty-eight days
on the front page of the paper,
Donald was having problems in business
and that was a big thing.
It was just awful. It was terrible.
[female announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,
I have the high honor
and the great privilege
of introducing Chelsea Clinton,
Hillary Clinton, and our governor
and the next president
of the United States, Bill Clinton.
[crowd cheers]
[Bill Clinton]
I want to especially thank
Hillary and Chelsea for taking this
big step on our life’s journey together.
Hillary for being my wife
and friend and partner
For the love we've shared
and the work she's done
to make life better for the children
and families of this state
I ask you to join with us today.
I believe that together
we can make America great again.
[crowd applauds, cheers]
[inaudible dialogue]
The man who says money means nothing
to him except as a means of keeping score
may be hurting on his favorite scoreboard.
Suddenly there is talk
that the Trump financial empire is shaky.
The most damaging of such suggestions was
published this week in Forbes magazine.
It says that you have a debt
of about 3.2 billion
and that you are losing money at the rate
of 40 million dollars a year. True?
Forbes has been after me for years,
uh, consistently after me.
They took properties
and devalued the properties.
They say the Plaza Hotel is not worth
what everybody knows its worth.
It’s a total hatchet job.
But it’s all borrowed money.
You have to service the debt.
Do you know my books?
Why do you say it's borrowed money?
-Well, if it's not, tell me.
-What right do you have to say--
-Do you know about borrowed money?
-Let me tell you what I know.
All I know is what people write about you.
I haven't seen your books.
-What they write is--
-See, if you were smart,
-you'd want to see my books.
-I'm not competent
-to look over your books.
-I can see that you're not--
An accounting firm
to look over--
Truly, I can see that you're not competent
to look at the books.
What happens is, every asset has--
I'm sure you're not gonna play that.
Every-- But now you might,
because I said I'm sure you won't.
Every asset-- Every asset has some debt.
-Okay, how much are you worth?
-I have absolutely no idea.
-[reporters clamoring]
-[bodyguard] Come on, back off.
-[Trump] You're kidding?
-[bodyguard] Back off.
I mean, the proof is, I've-- I've got
Donald Trump’s
confidential financial statement,
-okay? I'll tell you what it says.
-[man] I guess it’s not confidential
-if you've got it--
-No, we've printed it
-in the Inquirer. He's got two--
-[audience laughs]
Philadelphia Inquirer.
He's got $210 million dollars
in cash and stocks.
You dig back into the back of it
and you find out that he's borrowed
from a dozen banks a hundred
and ninety million of them.
It's all borrowed money.
I think that he was really very nimble
in his response to this crisis.
He was highly leveraged,
he had all kinds of debt,
and he was trying to take the notoriety
and make the notoriety affect
his bottom line in a positive way.
He wanted to make money off it.
Trump’s problem is that he doesn’t have
enough cash at the moment
to meet
all the interest payments he's got.
And do we know what we're talking about?
And in a capitalist marketplace,
where so much is dependent
upon what the customer thinks about you,
can media poison
the minds of the customer to the extent
that you are unfairly victimized?
I have a brilliant answer
to this question
[audience laughs]
but I will not have time to give it.
I'm sorry. It seems coincidental,
but I want to know how much all this
has to do with Marla Maples,
'cause all of a sudden it seems like
America hates Donald Trump.
[reporters clamoring]
[male reporter] Mr. Trump, can you tell us
why you're suing your wife?
He would either release
something negative about Ivana,
or, more likely,
something positive about himself.
"I will get through this.
I will survive this.
I had no idea this was happening,
but life goes on."
[male reporter 2]
Did Ivana violate the agreement?
[reporter] Tell me what you think
of the St. Regis hotel.
[reporter 2]
Do you feel she violated the agreement?
[Trump] The scrutiny has become so much.
I'm not a politician.
I'm not in public office.
I'm not under the eye in theory.
The story is a story about two people
that grow apart,
and frankly, I don’t think it should
be covered the way it's being covered.
[male reporter] You'd think he hates this
unwanted attention, but maybe not.
Mr. Trump, this maestro of publicity,
has been fueling the flames himself,
often placing phone calls
to influential columnists.
For the tabloids, it was Cindy Adams
versus Liz Smith,
Daily News versus the New York Post.
Ivana was tied in with Liz Smith
and gave all her information
to the Daily News
whereas Cindy Adams was tied in
with Donald,
and he fed everything to Cindy,
or just called them directly,
the New York Post,
and put things on the cover.
What special quality does he have that,
maybe, viewers don't know about?
It's funny. I always tell Donald,
I said, "I wish that you understood
how adorable you are
just being your true, true self.
You don't have to put on a red tie
and a blue suit to be likable.
It's what's beneath--"
[Larry King] He's likable.
People who work for him like him.
People that work for him, friends like,
you know, you that know him personally,
it's hard not to like him.
Well, he's just very supportive
and a very, very close friend of mine.
And we're just not really making any
big steps right now,
we're just enjoying
each other's company, when we can.
[interviewer] I was talking to
Miss Gilpatrick earlier, she said
Do you remember the great line
of George Saunders about Zsa Zsa?
He said when Zsa Zsa was through with him,
she "tossed me aside
like a squeezed lemon."
I think Marla might find herself
like a squeezed lemon.
First tonight, can real estate magnate
Donald Trump
keep his financial empire afloat?
Joining us now, Abraham Wallach,
senior vice president
of First Capital Management.
Mr. Wallach, at the mercy of the market,
speaking as a real estate man,
how much can Donald Trump blame
his current troubles
on the state of the real estate market?
Yes, he can blame market conditions
to some extent
uh, but I think the reality is
if you pay too much for properties,
and if your ego is as large
as his was-- is,
and you just buy everything in sight
part of the blame has to squarely rest
in your own lap.
Now that we see the larger picture,
three and a half billion dollars of debt,
properties that in the near term
have no chance of achieving
the kinds of revenue
necessary to cover debt
I did something that Donald doesn’t like.
I told the truth.
Just being a champ.
[Abraham Wallach]
Within a week of being on that program,
the door man rings me up
and he says someone's down here
and this man dumps a pile
of papers that thick,
and I start to look at them, and it says,
"Trump versus Wallach,
250 million dollars."
And I said, "Oh, my God, I'm being sued
by Trump for 250 million dollars,"
defamation of character, lies You know,
just every word you could think of
in a lawsuit was there.
Norma, can I have my calls, please?
Calls, please. Thank you.
[Wallach] Our firm used the same law firm
that Donald did.
The general partner of the firm,
calls, and he says,
"So long as you don’t say anything more
about him in the news,
he'll drop the lawsuit."
"But he wants one thing."
I said, "What's that?"
"He wants to talk to you."
I arrived a little early.
I was sitting there
slumped in this velvet couch,
taking in the panoramic view
of Central Park.
This giant. He--
I didn’t realize how tall he was.
He stuck his hand out and I stood up,
I shook his hand,
and he couldn’t have been nicer.
It’s as if all that had happened was
nothing, never happened, never existed.
[inaudible dialogue]
He said, "Go back and tell them
you're leaving.
I want you to start here on Monday."
I was sort of bitten by the Trump bug.
I quit the other job and Monday morning
I appeared at Trump's offices.
Why did Donald call me?
I think he saw me as someone
who could in some way help him.
He was not sure where or how,
but somehow help him.
[crowd cheers]
[male reporter] It’s been quite a week
for Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton.
His problem?
Long-rumored allegations of marital
infidelity finally surfaced
in a supermarket tabloid.
[cheering fades]
Fourteen percent of the registered voters
in America
said they wouldn’t vote
for a candidate who's had an affair.
But what does that mean? That means
86% of the American people
either don’t think its relevant
to presidential performance
or look at whether a person
looking at all the facts
is the best person to serve.
You know, I'm not sitting here,
some little woman,
standing by my man
like Tammy Wynette.
I'm sitting here because I love him,
and I respect him,
and I honor what he's been through
and what we have been through together
and, you know, if that's not enough
for people, then heck, don’t vote for him.
[male reporter]
With all of the gossip and innuendo,
Ivana Trump has never gone public
with her side.
Tonight, with Barbara,
she breaks her silence
And then came Christmas, Aspen
can you tell us what happened?
It’s still hard, isn't it?
It’s tough.
[Ivana Trump] I did find out first time
on the telephone,
when I did pick the phone
in the living room
and Donald did pick the phone
in the bedroom.
-[Barbara Walters] In Aspen?
-In Aspen.
And he spoke to a mutual friend of ours,
and he was talking about Marla,
and I really didn’t understand.
I never heard a name
like that in my life,
and I came to Donald and said,
"Who is Mula?"
And he said, "Well, that's a girl that's
going after me for last two years."
And I said, "Is that serious?"
And he said,
"Well, she is just going after me."
I think marriage
is an incredible institution.
I think it’s a great institution.
I told you my parents were married,
-have been married, are married--
-You’ve come from married stock.
-I come from married stock.
-People stay married in the Trumps.
You’re talking about 50 years
of marriage with my mother and father,
-that’s a long time--
-Your brother married a long time?
My-- Robert is happily married,
and my family's generally happily married,
so, I’m not one that loves
the concept of divorce.
In fact, just the opposite,
I hate the concept of divorce.
I hate everything it represents.
Um It really was my decision.
Um, I tried for two months, as you know,
until February.
I tried to live with the idea that I had
been cheated on and I had been lied to.
And-- And I decided that that's not a life
which I want to live.
I never could trust a man
who'd cheat on me.
Do you think that Donald is capable
of being faithful to one woman?
I don’t think so.
I made a big mistake. I put Ivana
into the business a little bit,
and she did a very good job,
and she ran the Castle,
and then she ran the Plaza,
and she did a nice job.
The divorce from Ivana
taught him a great lesson.
Ivana and I were
having problems for years.
She's a wonderful woman. But we were
having problems like everybody else.
I mean, we were having problems.
He proved that he couldn’t have
his reputation destroyed.
She'd come home every night.
"Here’s how we are doing.
We are doing this, we are doing that."
It became like I'm married
to a business partner
and it really hurt the marriage.
He learned he could ultimately get away
with anything.
[male reporter]
Donald Trump is running short of cash.
Four major New York banks
have been negotiating directly with Trump,
and may force him to sell key properties.
In a statement issued yesterday,
Trump insisted his investments
remain excellent values.
He is confident that he and his bankers
will work things out,
but there is a problem.
Benjy, hi, what’s going on?
[Wallach] I signed on to work for Trump
just as the women and children
were being led to the life boats
on the Titanic.
People were running from one room
to the other,
lawyers were all over the place
Accountants doing all kinds
of analyses and projections.
Everybody was petrified,
and they thought the ship would go under.
All right, find out, Lou, okay?
Thanks, Lou.
Hello. Jack, how are you?
What's going on?
Part of me was scared,
because of all the chaos
I saw going on,
but part of me was comfortable because
I said, "Nobody else can do this."
But do you think you come out okay
at that number? You really do, huh?
[Wallach]
Donald knew how to use the system.
The banks had no choice
but to stick with him.
I'll tell you what, Bernie, come in
and see me. Let’s you and I talk,
and then we'll see--
we'll go from that stage.
Does that sound all right?
Has Donald dumped Marla for Carla?
Well, those who've been following
the soap opera escapades
of billionaire developer Donald Trump
are being treated
to yet another chapter tonight.
Marla, who was the other woman
when Trump was married to Ivana,
apparently was told by the Donald
to pack up and move out
of their posh Upper East Side apartment
they were sharing.
And the new woman in Trump’s life
is an Italian model.
[Carswell]
Now he's dumping Marla for Carla?
And they rhyme? It was just too much.
I call up Donald Trump’s office and
I get his assistant Norma on the phone,
and I said, "What is going on, Norma?
What is going on?"
And she said, "Darlin', I'll get you
a call back in five minutes or so."
And she was true to her word,
five minutes later John Miller called.
[Carswell on recording] Good morning.
What’s your name again?
-[man on recording] John Miller.
-And you work with Donald?
Yes, that's correct.
John Miller, what kind
of comment is coming from Donald?
He really decided that he wasn't--
You know, he didn’t want to…
make a big commitment…
He didn’t want to make a commitment.
He really thought it was too soon.
He's coming out of a, you know, marriage,
that, uh And he's starting to do
tremendously well financially.
'Cause, you know,
there’s a real estate depression
in the United States,
and he's probably doing…
as well as anybody there is.
[man on recording]
I'm sort of new here. And I'm--
[Carswell] What's your position?
[man] I'm handling PR.
He gets so much of it.
[Carswell] Yeah.
You know, I had talked to Donald
on the phone a couple of times.
Call me over the weekend.
I want to talk to you, okay?
I thought, "It's just so weird
that he hired someone
who sounds just like him."
[man] Now off the record, I could tell you
that he didn’t care if he got bad PR
until he got his divorce finished.
And I remember thinking,
"I gotta keep him on the phone."
[Carswell] What's going to happen?
Is she being asked to leave,
-or is she going to be allowed to stay?
-[man] Well, he treats everybody well,
-and you know Donald, but he's a--
-Yeah. No, I have met him.
-Have you met him?
-Yes.
[man] He's a good guy
and he's not going to hurt anybody.
One article said, "He's going to throw her
out of the apartment,"
it's total nonsense.
Um, he's somebody that has
a lot of options and frankly…
he gets called by everybody in the book
in terms of women.
I mean they call, they just call.
Actresses, people that you write about
just call to see
if they can go out with him.
Madonna called
and wanted to go out with him,
that I can tell you.
[Carswell] As soon as I got off the phone
with John Miller,
I ran down the hall and I said,
"Oh, my God!
You gotta listen to this."
I said, "I think it's Donald."
Everybody in the office was listening
in on this tape, and they're like,
“Oh, my God!
You gotta get confirmation."
So, I called Cindy Adams
from the New York Post and she's like,
"What is he doing? That's Donald."
And then I called Marla,
and I was like, Marla there is something
I need to play for you.
[man on recording] Marla wants to be back
with him, but he just feels it's too soon.
When he makes the decision,
that will be a very lucky woman.
Off the record, he probably thought
Marla wasn't the right one.
So, now he has somebody else
named Carla.
Then she dropped Mick Jagger for Donald,
and that's where it is right now.
[Carswell]
She just cries when she hears this tape.
If you are as involved as they were
at this time, it was devastating news.
I don’t know what he was thinking
about Carla, because she has come out
and said that she had never had
anything to do with him.
So this is all very imaginary.
She didn’t leave Mick Jagger
for Donald Trump.
Right after she hears the tape,
Marla gets the hell out of town,
out of dodge.
Donald kept trying to move her back
and she was like, "I'm not having
anything to do with you anymore, Donald."
I had to hurt Marla’s feelings,
but it’s a good thing she found out,
to see who he really was.
[show host] He has seen his life,
the good and the bad,
splashed all across the front pages
of New York City tabloids,
and sometimes you get the feeling
that he doesn’t even mind
the notoriety one little bit.
As a single man once again, he may be
the most eligible bachelor in America.
Please welcome Donald Trump.
[crowd applauds]
Welcome.
Just this past weekend,
you had a big party in Palm Beach.
You invited just a few of your
close friends like the Miami Dolphin
-and the Buffalo Bill cheerleaders.
-[audience laughs]
Take a look at the monitors, if you will.
-Party at Trump Mansion! Woo!
-Yes!
[party guests cheering, exclaiming]
[indistinct chatter]
At that period, Donald Trump’s life
was going through all kinds of turmoil.
[cheering]
He was emphasizing his playboy-ness,
rather than the fact that his real estate
and gambling empires were going through
very turbulent times.
Woo!
It’s been a great year for me, and it's
been one of my best years, in a sense.
Yeah, but you are seen in the company
of lots of beautiful women, Donald.
I like beautiful women.
You're very beautiful.
This is really a beautiful woman.
[audience cheers, applauds]
Way to deflect the reporter's questions,
right?
[male reporter] Well, the name Taj Mahal
means "crown of the palace."
[male photographer] A still! A still.
[male reporter] Only Trump’s crown is
in hock tonight.
Trump has been forced
to put his Taj Mahal Hotel
and casino in Atlantic City
into bankruptcy,
because he couldn’t pay his debts.
[female reporter]
After weeks of negotiations,
at the press conference Trump seemed
pleased with the deal.
[Trump] I see so many people here
for this, I can’t believe it.
One of these days you'll be writing
about other people too,
but I think it’s going to turn out,
Chris, to be a very positive
It was a long, hard negotiation.
Donald understands that most reporters
accurately quote what they're told,
but they really don’t know
what they're writing about.
I think it's wonderful the way everybody
pulled together and worked
on really taking a building that is doing,
as Mr. Ross said, record numbers.
And once his story is out there,
then anything else
is just a counter story.
Uh, and we're very happy that
this all worked out,
and I think that over the long term,
it's gonna prove out to be
a great victory for everybody.
[male reporter] Mr. Ross, you said--
Rather, Mr. Miller said that
this is a framework for an agreement.
-I'm wondering if
-[reporters fade out]
All sorts of people
who were owed money got stiffed.
[man] Down! Down! Stay down.
[man]
When the Trump Taj Mahal went bad
it didn’t go bad by itself.
It took two other casinos and it took
thousands of individuals down with it.
Forget the debt holder.
Those people that loaned him that money
assumed that risk.
That's their problem.
But the suppliers,
and the small businesses
that provided services,
provided equipment, provided supply,
expected to be paid at the end of 30 days.
A lot of businesses in the Atlantic City
area went out of business,
because they could not sustain
the loss from the monies
they couldn’t collect from Trump.
And from that day to this,
he has never once publicly expressed
regret for that kind of damage.
[male photographer]
Marla, over here, please.
-[male photographer 2] Marla!
-[male photographer 3] Marla! Over here!
[photographer] How do you feel?
Mr. Trump, how do you feel?
Great.
[female reporter]
Trump was in the delivery room
for the birth of his fourth child.
He even cut her umbilical cord.
-Thank you!
-Thank you.
[scattered applause]
[male reporter] In a dramatic,
stunning form reversal,
struggling tycoon and media ring master
Donald Trump has asked Marla Maples
to marry him.
Trump left his headquarters, went across
the street to Harry Winston jewelers,
and bought a ring similar to this one.
[Trump] We really anticipated getting
married and having a baby,
not having a baby and getting married.
Why didn’t you marry her right away
when you found out she was pregnant?
-Indecision. Really, indecision.
-Indecision?
To me, it’s a more difficult decision.
You know, it’s in many respects
a much bigger decision.
It's an irrevocable deal, theoretically.
Well, it really is.
In theory, it’s an irrevocable deal.
[crowd cheering]
[photographers clamoring]
[male reporter] Celebrity guests swarm
New York’s Plaza Hotel for the big events.
The crowd was the expected
mix of beautiful people,
business leaders and politicians.
And the hype was pervasive.
[Wallach] The very first function I was
invited to was to Donald’s wedding,
and it was a very grand affair.
Huh? What did I get for their wedding?
A toaster!
[female interviewer] A toaster!
[Wallach] He knows all these politicians,
all these Hollywood stars.
[photographers yelling] O.J.!
I mean, the man just knows everybody.
They've gone through a lot of turmoil,
and I think everybody in the country
believes that maybe their relationship
could work if this relationship will work,
you know, for all the things
that they've gone through,
and I think this will work.
[photographers yelling] Trump! Trump!
[male photographer] Mrs. Trump!
[woman] Donald would not have married her,
had his father not pressured him.
He said, "She has a child.
Now you have to marry her."
[indistinct chatter]
[female interviewer] Can you tell us what
got you to pop the question?
Oh
Well, I think it was just the relationship
that was happening,
and it just feels really good.
-See you later. Have a good time.
-And you always find the time. [laughs]
[woman] Donald, give Marla a kiss!
[male reporter] When it was over, Donald
and Marla treated fans to the royal wave.
[Wallach] It was in the Plaza Hotel.
It cost several hundred thousand dollars
and he charged everything to Citibank,
who had the mortgage on the building.
Even though it had huge mortgages,
he was still the owner,
so he just charged everything.
For years, they were hounding him
to pay the cost of the wedding.
[David Cay Johnston] The Trump
shuttle airline goes into bankruptcy.
It’s a complete disaster.
The Trump Plaza Hotel is taken over
by a Saudi Prince,
at a loss to Donald.
And so, a whole series of properties
fall out of Donald’s hands
over this period of time.
[male reporter] Trump has put another
of his trophies up for sale, his yacht.
[Johnston]
But Donald still can’t repay his debts.
American banks won't loan him
money anymore.
So, Donald starts getting
money from other sources.
Trump creates the only
publicly traded company
he's ever been involved with.
Make a six bid for 20,000
For those interested
in following the stock,
Trump made it characteristically easy.
He trades under the symbol of DJT.
Donald J. Trump.
Donald Trump understands
that if he creates this public persona,
that's what people will see.
You sell people what they want to hear.
[Selina Scott] We were following Trump
in Britain at that stage.
I think he thought, well, it might burnish
his image a little bit.
He wanted to send a message
out to his potential investors.
If he was considered to be going down,
well, he had a message
for them that he wasn't.
[Trump]
Here's our new partner in the deal,
the legendary Selina Scott from Europe.
-Hello.
-[Scott] Oh--
[Trump] See you in five minutes. [laughs]
-Hi, guys.
-Ah, she’s beautiful.
Now, this is just a small group.
Philip Johnson
-[Scott] Yes.
-[Trump] also a legend.
Selina is the biggest in Europe.
You know about that?
Everybody knows Selina Scott.
[laughter]
He saw himself as a deal maker.
And how do you make sure
that you come across in the best way,
that people are going to look at you
and think,
"Here's a guy who knows what he is doing"?
Hey Rich, get closer.
When you get next to a building
this high, it’s a scary thing.
You know, to me,
that's the symbol of lot of things.
That's the ultimate symbol.
It so much represents the greatness
of New York and the power of New York.
It was trying to impress me
so that the television cameras
could pull out from him
this image of a man who is in charge,
in control, is gonna survive.
He was very much in awe of his mother.
[Scott]
Donald’s mother, Mary McLeod,
a dark-haired beauty
from the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides,
first met Fred Trump when she was just 18.
What did she see
in the young builder from the Bronx?
Why is it ever about the guys
we fall in love with?
It's special, right? He was wonderful
and a very eligible--
the most eligible bachelor
in New York, so there.
[Scott] Donald obviously asked her
to come and talk.
He needed his mom there to act
as his witness
to his good nature,
and his ability, and all the rest of it.
[Scott]
Fred and Mary had five children.
Donald was the Trump’s third born.
His older brother Fred apparently
found it hard to satisfy
his father’s aspirations.
Alcohol became the easy way out.
[Trump] I had a brother who was
a great guy, handsome, beautiful guy.
And Fred died at a relatively young age,
in his 40s, of pure and simple alcoholism.
I mean, he just drank like a fish.
He just drank and drank.
It’s a drug. It’s a horrible drug.
[Scott] This was success for Donald,
to display his mother in this way.
To say, "Look how far my mother has come,
and look what she's given birth to."
[laughs]
Did you at any stage in that think,
"He really has bitten off
more than he can chew.
He's really gone and done it now"?
-No, no, never.
-[Scott] Never?
I knew. I just knew he'd come back.
[Trump] This is just the right time
for this industry.
We’re really happy,
and this is a very exciting day.
[Johnston]
They sell the stock at a very good price.
[male reporter] Not bad work for a man
whose casinos have gone into bankruptcy.
[Johnston] That was sort of
an astonishing development.
I mean, this is a man who had
a track record of not paying his bills,
of not managing his enterprises well.
Wall Street
has a lot of respect for Trump.
[Johnston] Donald gets paid at least
82 million dollars,
and plus, 50 million dollars is used to
pay off debts he personally guaranteed.
How could this happen?
[audience cheering, applauding]
He's a guy who has engineered
one of the biggest turnarounds
in modern business history.
People were taking away control
of your various casinos
and your far-flung empire,
your real estate developments
had stalled.
As you sit there today,
give me a one-word answer,
how are things going business-wise?
It’s probably been the best year
of my life from a business standpoint.
One word? I don’t know.
Can we say "luck"? Maybe "luck."
[Rivera] "Luck" is a good word.
We'll be right back.
[audience cheering]
It increased his image as this man
who was all-powerful
and can do anything
and has the Midas touch.
And Donald Trump is masterful
at exploiting these things.
That's why he is such a great con-artist,
the greatest con-artist
in the history of the world.
[female reporter] It is Splitsville
for Donald Trump and Marla Maples.
They've decided to separate
after three-and-a-half years of marriage,
and say they hope
to remain friends.
"Often, I'll tell friends whose wives
are constantly nagging them
about this or that, that they' re
better off cutting their losses.
When a man has to endure
a woman who is not supportive
and complains constantly
about his not being home
or being attentive enough,
he will not be successful
unless he is able to cut the cord."
-That's true, I mean, I think that--
-It doesn’t say much
for trying to make
a marriage work, does it?
It doesn’t. It's very cold
and I hate saying it, but it’s true.
I've seen people
that are married to women
that, you know, their lives--
They just will not be successful.
Do you think people are going
to look at you as someone
they should take marriage advice from?
[laughs] That's a tough question.
[Trump] In real life, I believe
that wealth does, in fact,
isolate you from other people.
It’s a protective mechanism.
You have your guard up
much more so than you would
if you didn’t have wealth.
[clattering]
[Trump] There was
a great rise in Citizen Kane
and there was a modest fall.
[clattering, shattering]
[Trump] The fall wasn't a financial fall.
The fall was a personal fall
but it was a fall nevertheless.
So, you had the highs
and you had the lows.
Rosebud.
A lot of people don’t really understand
the significance of it.
I'm not sure if anybody understands
its significance,
but I think the significance
is bringing a lonely, rather sad figure
back into his childhood.
[Scott] The youngest
of the family, Robert,
also had problems as a child
coping with the acquisitive Donald.
[Mary Anne Trump] I remember he used to be
in the playroom building with blocks,
and Robert got building blocks
at the same time,
so they had a lot of building blocks
[chuckles] and Donald borrowed Robert's.
Robert willingly gave the blocks
to his brother to build,
but Donald glued the blocks together.
-He never gave the blocks back?
-Oh, no.
Of course not, he couldn’t,
they were glued in one [laughs]
-Glued in one big building. [laughs]
-[Scott laughs]