28. INTO THE AGE OF TRUMP
THE MAKING OF DONALD TRUMP
CONTENTS
 The making of Donald Trump
 Quite the entrepreneur!
 Ivana and family
 Crisis!
 Rebound
 Trump as a TV personality: The
Apprentice
 Into the world of politics
The textual material on this webpage is drawn directly from my work
America – The Covenant Nation © 2021, Volume Two, pages 452-454.
THE MAKING OF DONALD TRUMP |
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Trump certainly came across often as vulgar and
ridiculous. But he was in fact no nitwit. He could certainly be very
theatrical. That was indeed a key part of his background. But he was
also a successful venture capitalist, who took on huge investment
risks, sometimes failed, but never backed down (except one period of
depression in his life), and pushed ever-onward to various goals he had
set before himself – big goals. And certainly one of those goals
included residency in the White House.
Donald Trump came from a family line of
successful entrepreneurs, especially his father, who developed a huge
housing construction and landowning company in the New York City
boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn. Donald grew up1
in a dedicatedly "Middle Class" (despite the family's enormous wealth)
Presbyterian home as the fourth of five children (two sisters, one who
went on to become a U.S. Circuit Court judge and another to become
Chase Manhattan Bank executive, and two brothers, one a TWA pilot and
the other who eventually took over the family's extensive
property-management business).
Donald started his schooling at a
fashionable prep school in Queens (through the 7th grade), then was
sent to the New York Military Academy – to bring some of his wilder
ways under strict discipline! At the Academy he proved to be an
outstanding athlete in a wide range of sports. He then (1964) entered
Fordham University, but transferred to the Wharton School at the
University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia to study the real estate
business. Like his father, Donald combined studies with actual
business, working with his father's real estate company. For instance,
during his college years he and his father were able to buy up the
foreclosed Swifton Village apartment complex (suffering from a huge
non-occupancy rate) in Cincinnati, Ohio, and together put it back up
and running to full occupancy. In 1968 he graduated from Wharton with a
degree in economics.
1He was born as an early Boomer in 1946, the same birth-year as Bill Clinton and George W. Bush (Trump - June; Bush - July; Clinton - August)!
For more on Trump's personal history
Donald Trump (leftmost) with
his brothers and sisters, Fred Jr.,
Robert, Maryanne
and Elizabeth
 Donald Trump with his
father Fred
and mother Mary Anne at the
New York Military Academy 
Donald Trump senior yearbook
picture at the New York Military Academy – 1964
Donald Trump (fourth
from left) and the
New York
Military Academy soccer team  Donald Trump (again, fourth from
left)
and the
New York Military Academy baseball team  Donald Trump and his
father Fred
at Donald's graduation from the Wharton School at the University of
Pennsylvania – 1968 
Trump and his
real-estate developer father at Trump Village, Brooklyn – 1975
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With $1 million in support from his
father, Trump set up his own company focusing on the construction
business in Manhattan. It would take his company a dozen years to
develop until it was ready to take on truly massive construction
projects, such as the purchase (1976) and conversion of the old,
somewhat run down, and unprofitable Commodore Hotel, into the fabulous
Grand Hyatt on 42nd Street next to the Grand Central Terminal. It would
be opened four years later (at a cost of $100 million) when Donald was
only thirty-four. But even by that time (1979) he had begun even
grander projects, the building of his first Trump Tower, built on the
site of the old Bonwit Teller building, at a cost of $200 million, and
a number of lawsuits, which he would fend off with the help of his
lawyer friend Roy Cohn (Joe McCarthy's legal counsel during the
McCarthy Era!). From this point, he moved on to a variety of other
projects: Trump casinos in Atlantic City, an Eastern Airlines shuttle
service, a skating rink in New York City's Central Park, partial
ownership of Miss Universe and Miss USA pageants, a New Jersey football
team (briefly), and in 1985 ownership of the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm
Beach Florida, something that became a personal get-away home for him
and his family.
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Trump with NY City Mayor Ed
Koch, NY Governor Hugh Carey, and Urban Development Corp. VP Robert
Dormer looking
over plans for the new New York Grand Hyatt hotel
and convention center –
1978.
The Grand Hyatt – Manhattan –
completed
in
1979
Trump holding a model of the
Trump
Tower 
The 6-story Atrium inside Trump
Tower 
Trump, as owner (1984-1985) of the short-lived New Jersey Generals football
team, with
Fred Wilpon of the Mets, Sonny Werblen of Madison Square Garden and George Steinbrenner
of the Yankees ... at a breakfast forum on
the future of professional sports – 1984
Trump
announces plans
for a
new arena to be built in the Queens – December 1985
Trump with NYC Park Commissioner
Henry
Stern announcing his
plans to rebuild quickly the long-abandoned ice rink at the Wollman Skating Rink in
Central Park (after five years of cost overruns and delays by the city) – August
1986
Trump with his
father and boxing
promoter Don King – December 1987
Trump
has just agreed to
purchase Eastern Airlines' Northeast air shuttle for $365 million –
1988
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Along the way he met Ivana Zelnikova, who
had climbed her way out of obscurity in Communist Eastern Europe by
presenting herself as an Olympic skier and a model. They were married
the next year (1977) and began a family in a fashionable New York City
Fifth Avenue apartment. There they would raise together Don Jr., Ivanka
and Eric.
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 Wedding Day –
1977  Trump and Ivana in their early years
together
Trump and his three children by Ivana:
Donald, Jr.,
Ivanka, and Eric – 1983
Donald, Ivana and
their young family –
1985
 Trump's Mar-a-Lago Estate at Palm
Beach, Florida (purchased in 1985) which was built by and lifetime home to the
supremely wealthy Marjorie Merriweather Post. Ivana loved to "hold court" here with
the
rich and famous. 
Trump
and Ivana the day she received US citizenship – May
1988
Trump
and Ivana hosting their pastor
Norman Vincent Peale's 90th birthday party – May
1988 
Trump
and Ivana coming off
their newly refurbished Yacht, Trump Princess –
July 1988
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Then when the Stock Market crashed in
1987 and America slid into a deep recession, many major New York real
estate developers went into bankruptcy, and Trump's own greatly
over-extended real estate empire also began to fail. His Taj Mahal
casino in Atlantic City was not coming close to paying for its
expenses, and work on his project of restoring the historic Plaza Hotel
in New York City had come to a halt. At the same time, Trump owed
$billions to banks that had invested in his various businesses. By
1990, he too was facing bankruptcy.
But the banks were not interested in
another bankruptcy, and finally agreed to a five-year payout of his
debts, although that meant having to sell off a lot of his properties
(which because of the recession had already lost considerable value),
and cut way back on his operating expenses.
Then to make matters worse for Trump, his
marriage with Ivana fell apart when his affair with the Georgia model,
Marla Maples, became public. Consequently, he became involved in a very
expensive divorce with Ivana (1992), one he could hardly afford. Marla
subsequently became pregnant, and two months after their daughter
Tiffany was born, the two married (December 1993). But Donald and Marla
would separate in 1997 and divorce two years later.
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The Plaza Hotel on
5th Avenue
opposite Central Park
Trump and
Ivana at a Manhattan social event
at the time of his supposed financial "melt-down"
– December 1989
Trump's Taj
Mahal Casino in
Atlantic City, NJ – opened in 1990
Trump inside his Taj Mahal casino – March
1990
Trump
leaving the
courthouse followed by reporters – March
1991
Divorced with Ivana in 1992 ... and remarried with Marla Maples (1993-1999)
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In 1997 he would publish his second book, The Art of the Comeback.2
And indeed Trump had slowly achieved just that, a true comeback. In
1994 he was able to acquire 50 percent ownership of the Empire State
Building, and in 1995 finally finish the restoration and sell the Plaza
Hotel (which he renamed the Trump Building). The year after that he
developed a multi-building project along the Hudson River. And from there
he eventually went on to acquire numerous properties in various places
around the country as well as overseas, from office towers to hotels
and golf courses.
During this time he met (1998) and began dating the Slovene model,
Melania Knauss, although it would not be until 2005 that they would
marry. Attending the wedding were numerous political and media
celebrities, including Bill and Hillary Clinton! A little over a year
later Melania would give birth to their son, Barron.
2His first book, something of a Trump biography (largely written by Tony Schwartz), was published in 1987 as Trump: The Art of the Deal (New York: Ballantine Books). It would become a New York Times
bestseller for almost a year – and stay on top of the list for
three months – making the fairly young Trump one of Gallup Poll's
top-10 best-known Americans at the time.
1997
Trump and the
Slovene fashion model Melania Knauss
at a New York Giants preseason game – August
1999 
Trump's third
wedding (January 22, 2005) – at his Mar-a-Lago
Estate with his bride Melania ... and Hillary and Bill in
attendance!
TRUMP AS A TV PERSONALITY (THE
APPRENTICE |
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Already (2003) Trump had turned to yet an entirely new challenge, becoming producer and host of the NBC TV show The Apprentice.
In this very popular program, contestants competed for one-year
management jobs with the Trump Organization, Trump's well-known
catchphrase "You're fired!" directed at contestants eliminated from the
competition. That show eventually (2008) evolved into The Celebrity Apprentice,
involving this time various celebrities competing for funding for their
favorite charities. He would continue to host this program all the way
up until 2015, when he stepped down in order to pursue a new challenge:
his run for the U.S. presidency.
Estimates at that time about his net worth ran at around the $3 billion mark.
Trump as TV host for
the TV series The Apprentice
/ The Celebrity Apprentice
(2004-2015)
with his
daughter Ivanka and son Donald,
Jr. 
"You're fired!"
Trump hosting
The Celebrity
Apprentice
Meanwhile ... some of Trump's other
projects  Trump Towers
Las Vegas
(completed 2008) Trump Towers
Chicago
(completed 2009) The Trump Ocean Club – Panama City,
Panama – (completed 2011) (condominium
apartments built in connection with Roger Khafif
under the Trump name and managed
by the Trump organization)  Trump Towers – Mumbai,
IndiaOther Trump
Towers
are found in Miami, Toronto, Turkey
plus other major buildings of a
similar
order in multiple cities ... all of them of unique design
INTO THE WORLD OF POLITICS |
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Even before his entry into the race for
the Republican Party's presidential nomination in 2016, Trump had
previously tried his hand in the world of politics, one more new
challenge of interest to him. Actually, in 1999, he switched his
affiliation from the Republican to the Reform Party, in order to run as
a presidential candidate for that party. He then seemed to switch his
interests to the Democratic Party, even being invited by the party's
presidential nominee John Kerry (and other Democrats) to sponsor
Democratic Party fundraisers for party candidates. But he soon returned
to support the Republican Party, even in 2012 thinking about making a
run for the Republican Party presidential nomination, although in the
end he threw his support to Mitt Romney, the Party's official candidate.
But in June of 2015, Trump made it
official. He was definitely a candidate for the Republican Party
presidential nomination, announcing that his campaign would be built on
the challenge to "Make America Great Again" (MAGA). For younger
American generations accustomed to finding greater honor in shaming
America for its many sins (all found in the person of Trump!), MAGA
sounded perfectly terrible as an idea – Fascist actually.
To the amazement of many, Trump pulled
ahead of his competitors to gain the Republican Party presidential
nomination, and then he went on to conduct a carefully strategized move
to win the electoral college votes needed to gain the presidency
itself. All of it was done with the same careful calculation by which
he had built up his huge business empire.
No, Trump was no nitwit. Vulgar and
abrasive at times, yes. Misleading in his broad public statements about
what he planned to do with respect to this issue or that, yes. But a
nitwit. No.
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Trump
and his family at the Trump Towers at the formal announcement of his presidential run –
June 2015
Donald Trump campaigning
in New Hampshire – July 2015
Son Eric and
daughter Ivanka Trump at the Republican presidential debate
in Charleston, SC – Jan 2016
Go on to the next section: Getting Started
 Miles
H. Hodges
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