'Art of the Deal' author: Trump has 'been a fraud all his life' but now it’s 'official'
Tony Schwartz — who co-authored The Art of the Deal with Donald Trump 30 years before he became president — gave a revealing glimpse into the mind of the former president following Judge Arthur Engoron's massive civil judgment against Trump on Friday.
During an interview with CNN host Anderson Cooper, Schwartz said that the $450 million judgment — which includes both the $350 million penalty plus roughly $100 million in interest that accrues daily until it is paid — is particularly devastating to the former president specifically because of the fact that Trump views his net worth and self-worth as one in the same.
"Nothing is more important to Donald Trump than money. That is his number one. More important than power, more important than dominance... And his core belief is, 'I'm nothing. I'm worth nothing,'" Schwartz said. "Right now he's being asked to pay an amount of money he does not have."
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"And so, if you're empty inside and you're looking outside, and money is your measure... his feeling has gotta be first and foremost today, humiliation, stupefication — because I think he could not have believed that the judgment was gonna be this big against him — and rage, because rage is his primary emotion," he continued. "That's his playbook forever. He's been telling lies all his life. He's been a fraud all his life. It just became absolutely official today that he's a fraud."
When including both the $450 million in penalties and interest handed down today along with the $93.3 million Trump has already been ordered to pay writer E. Jean Carroll for both sexual abuse (from a separate $5 million verdict in 2023) and defamation, the 45th president of the United States is now on the hook to pay in excess of half a billion dollars.
Additionally, Trump could have to pay even more money to plaintiffs who sue him over his role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol after the Supreme Court ruled those suits can move forward (the ex-president has chosen not to appeal that ruling). Schwartz said that if Trump wins another term, his main priority will be to use the power of the Oval Office to enrich himself.
"Trump has two goals for his second term if he gets it. One is to end democracy. Not so much that he has a philosophical feeling about democracy, but he wants to be the autocrat. He wants to be in charge. Why? Well, partly for dominance, but mostly because the real number one desire he has is to be the richest man in the world," Schwartz said. "Because then maybe, maybe, all that gnawing that's going on inside of him will go away if he's number one, truly. He wants to be richer than Putin."
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Schwartz added that while Engoron opined that Trump's pattern of fraud "borders on pathological," he would go a step further and call it "sociopathic."
"Zero contrition for something you know you did that is wrong is the very definition of sociopathy," he said.
Watch the video of Schwartz's comments below, or by clicking this link.
