The World’s Biggest Con

Jonathan Chait: “In the mid-1970s, the Trump family set out to sell the world on a character of its own creation: Donald J. Trump, dashing and brilliant business genius. The story’s protagonist was the child of multimillionaire developer Fred Trump, a son who had accomplished almost nothing in business, and whose taxable income was under $25,000. The trick was quite simple: young Donald would squire reporters around his father’s business empire and claim he had built it himself.”

“In reality, Donald Trump was in the money-inheriting business…”

“The strategy was to convert Fred Trump’s fortune into publicity, which Donald could then monetize. The lies used to construct Trump’s image were massive. In 1984, Donald concocted a series of lies to persuade Forbes he was worth $900 million. Its reporter, Jonathan Greenberg, diligently unraveled every exaggeration and reduced the published sum to $100 million, only to discover decades later that the actual amount was a mere $5 million. The power of the lie was its scale. Greenberg could imagine Trump was exaggerating his wealth tenfold, but the idea he was exaggerating it 180-fold beggared imagination.”