Because Donald Trump was once host of a reality show called The Apprentice, I was able to meet him on a couple of occasions. Once in his office on the 25th floor of Trump Tower in Manhattan, but that’s a story for another day. The story below is a little more urgent.
Today, Tuesday, November 5, is election day in America, and Republican candidate Trump is running against Democratic candidate vice president Kamala Harris. If he wins, he will, at 78, be the 47th president of the United States. Eight years ago, he became the 45th president.
The pundits all say the race is too close to call. To this TV critic, that millions of voters are not already sick of this guy is the most stunning thing about this election.
When he was hosting The Apprentice, NBC invited Television Critics Association reporters to a press conference in Los Angeles. The series began 20 years ago in 2004. This might have been heading into the second season.
Trump was still bragging about being on the No. 1 show on television. That was never true although Season One was very popular. It was the 7th most-watched series that initial season according to the Nielsen ratings; 11th out of all US primetime shows at the end of Season Two. By Season 5 it was 51st; Season 6, 75th.
An NBC executive, former chief marketing officer John Miller, recently called Trump out in Vanity Fair for padding the numbers, warning that the guy simply never stops lying.
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Reporters witnessed this first hand on several occasions. After the NBC press conference, critics were invited to an outdoor cocktail reception. We were split into groups of five or six around the pool at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. Trump went from group to group, giving all of us a little up close face time with The Donald.
After introductions were out of the way, he told the group I was in, and probably all of the others, an outrageous, unforgettable story about Frank Sinatra.
It went something like this: the Trumps (he was probably with ex-wife Ivana at the time) went to pick up Frank and Barbara Sinatra to take them out to dinner. Things were not good when they arrived.
“They were having a hell of a fight,” said Trump, who is a very good storyteller. “I said, ‘Frank, we can do this another time,’ but Sinatra insisted we go.”
The two couples got in a limo and went to an expensive restaurant. It was at a casino, I think, either in Atlantic City or Vegas, maybe one of Trump’s establishments. In the car and at the restaurant, the atmosphere was very tense. The dinner conversation was almost non existent.
A young man approached the table. “Excuse me Mr. Sinatra,” he nervously began. “I just had to come over here to thank you.”
Sinatra did not look up. The man pointed way over to the entrance of the dining room. A woman was standing near the door.
“That is my new bride Betty. Today we were married. Our first dance was to your song, ‘My Way.'”
Still no response from Sinatra, who carried on eating.
“I just wanted to thank you sir, for bringing so much joy and happiness, not just into our lives and the lives of our families, but the lives of people everywhere.”
Sinatra stopped chewing, swallowed, and put down his fork. According to Trump, he snapped his fingers. His bodyguard Jilly Rizzo — up to this point not mentioned in the story — came out of nowhere, grabbed the young man by the throat, and beat him, according to Trump, to within an inch of his life.
“There was blood everywhere,” said Donald. “The bride was bawling her eyes out.”
We critics stood there, eyes wide, mouths agape.
“Anyway, nice meeting you fellows,” said Trump, who slapped us on the back and went on to the next patsies.
Why would Donald Trump tell a group of complete strangers who also happened to be journalists such a crazy, violent and disturbing story? There was no attempt to make sure that this is all off the record. All of us realized we could never file this for the next day’s newspaper. For one thing, it was almost impossible to collaborate. The key people in the story were either dead, or, in the case of Trump’s ex-wife, would likely have amnesia. Rizzo died in 1992, Sinatra in ’98. I’m pretty sure none of my colleagues tried to follow up with Barbara Sinatra, who died at 90 in 2017.
What we experienced, however, was a pretty cool trick. We were now all co-conspirators. Trump’s art of the deal was to draw close the people he was doing business with — in our case, newspaper scribes helping to promote his stupid reality show — with a wild, intimate, crazy secret about one of the world’s biggest celebrities. We had shared knowledge that came straight from Donald Trump. Holy cow, what a story.
Except it was a lie. Just like his claim that he was the star of the No. 1 series on television. Trump knew, however, that most people cannot resist a good story.
Can you fool all of the people all of the time? Close to half of the people? America, please vote.
