It's pretty hard to surprise Tony Schwartz with anything donald trump-related. After all, the man co-authored trump's biography, Art of the Deal. He's known our rat-fcker of an overlord for thirty years. Today's bombshell New York Times report, however, shattered even Schwartz's expectations and understanding of how deep trump's corruption reaches. He told Ari Melber:
SCHWARTZ: Oh my god, I knew it was bad, but I didn't believe -- this is a man who took hundreds of millions of dollars or fraudulently took hundreds of millions of dollars, and when his father was 85 and near senile, tried to write a codicil to his will to take over complete control of his empire. Why? Because Fred Trump was in the business of making money, and donald trump was in the business of losing money. And he lost money of Fred's. Throughout his career. It's like the cover has been ripped off this man. Whatever myth there was, as you said earlier, that he was a self-made man, or that he was even a legitimate businessman, is gone forever.
Melber talked about trump feeling like he had grown up in his father's shadow, and the need to make something of himself on his own. How despicable is the depth to which he would sink to conceal how much he owed his own fortunes to what he got from his father - some even without his father's knowledge - just to put on this facade of being a self-made man.
SCHWARTZ: I have felt and said forever, as long as I've known trump, which is more than 30 years, that this is a man who is a black hole. Who is a black hole, and feels in every moment like a fraud. What comes out tonight is he had good reason to feel like he was a fraud. He was a fraud. And he was committing fraud, fraudulent -- he was being fraudulent. And here it is in living color. Or in black and white, since it's in the New York Times, a brilliant piece of reporting. I think donald trump sitting in the White House tonight is probably feeling more enraged by this than by virtually anything that ever happened to him.
How much do we love the notion of trump twisting in the wind right now? But of course, Schwartz wouldn't say, "Now, we've got him," or "THIS will be the end of him." We've all of us gone down that road before only to be devastated to see him rise above and continue on his path of cruelty and destruction. And fraud. Schwartz told Melber, though, "I have to say, the idea of who donald trump was that existed until today is gone forever."
Melber articulated the absolute scariest thing about all of this. The machinations and whims of that twisted black hole of a fraudulent thief intertwined with the fate of the entire nation. "It is about the mystery, and what the New York Times reports is the fraud at the heart of a financial empire that is coexisting with a presidency that affects everyone's national security and livelihood."
