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red dog 1

(27,648 posts)
Fri Aug 26, 2016, 04:18 PM Aug 2016

Trump Off Camera: The Man Behind The "In-Your-Face Provocateur"

Fresh Air
August 23, 2016


DAVE DAVIES
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross who's off this week.
It's fair to say no one's gotten more media attention this year than Donald Trump, maybe more attention than any presidential candidate ever.
Our guests today have spent a long time looking into Trump, but they aren't here to talk about the Trump controversy of the day or his most recent provocative statement.
Michael Kranish is an investigative reporter for the Washington Post.
Marc Fisher is a senior editor.
And they've written a book about Trump's life and career that's based on the work of more than 20 of the Post's reporters, editors and fact-checkers.
The authors say the Post wants to examine the major candidates' lives to help voters understand how they think, decide and act and how they might behave in office.
Trump gave the Post team more than 20 hours of interviews but declined to give permission for them to talk to his siblings or past associates who'd signed non-disclosure agreements.
Much of the information about Trump's business dealings had to be gleaned from court records and other public filings as well as hundreds of interviews.
Some of the findings of the Post's investigation have appeared in stories in the newspaper, and there's more in the new book:
"Trump Revealed: An American Journey Of Ambition, Ego, Money, And Power"
I spoke to Michael Kramish and Marc Fisher yesterday.

Michael Kranish, Marc Fisher, welcome to FRESH AIR.
You know, there's a debate about whether Donald Trump's worth is mostly self-made or inherited.
And I learned from your book that it was actually his grandfather who started the family real estate business.
Tell us a little about him.



MICHAEL KRANISH
Sure. Well his grandfather came from Germany, although Donald Trump, for whatever reason, wrote in his 1987 autobiography, "The Art Of The Deal," that his grandfather came from Sweden.
That's not correct.
The family definitely came from Germany.
We actually sent a reporter to Germany, to that town.
Frances Sellers went to Germany and visited the town, did a story for the paper and reporting for the book.
So it's an example of how we're really able to write an all-encompassing biography here.
And she found that the grandfather did make a reasonable fortune - not a huge one - but went west, went out to the Klondike and then eventually moved to New York City.
So there was a business starting.
And then Donald Trump's father Fred became very successful in New York real estate.


DAVIES:
And what kind of business did Fred Trump, Donald's father, build?


KRANISH:
Well, Fred trump was an extraordinary builder for his time.
He built many thousands of apartments in what they called 'dumps on stumps' in Brooklyn and Queens.
And there were rentals, there were house sales, and he was very, very successful.
You look back at the clippings of that time and you actually see what a big deal Fred Trump was.
He wasn't the same kind of self-promoter that Donald turned out to be, but he was prety good in his own right.
And he eventually brought his son Donald into the family business in which they rented thousands of apartments in Brooklyn and in Queens.


Listen to entire interview, read entire transcript, or read Interview Highlights:
http://www.npr.org/2016/08/23/491037719/trump-off-camera-the-man-behind-the-in-your-face-provocateur




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