The Making of Donald Trump

Donald Trump was notorious before deciding to run for President. His notoriety made him wealthy many times over. The Making of Donald Trump gives a cursory glance at the ancestry that brought forth Donald J. Trump. His grandfather and father were hardworking but not necessarily honorable or honest. His father, Fred, was known as a racist slumlord who passed his acumen and business to Donald. Donald would navigate the building and construction industries while dodging lawsuits for non-payment of labor, discrimination, and other shoddy practices. His connections to organized crime would yield labor harmony while other businesses faced unrest. Trump would glide into the casino business despite fraud in the application process. He would manage to stave off financial ruin by bailout in the 1990s. The Trump empire would prosper into the 2010s on the success of The Apprentice and other ventures, some of which involve little more than the use of his name.

David Cay Johnston’s work is a hard-hitting expose of a master showman. Johnston interviews contemporaries of Trump, some of whom Trump denies knowing, and these contemporaries paint a portrait of a man who is a shameless self-promoter who loves money, power, and women, but shows little respect for them or for many people. In an election year or not, this is a must read biography.