DONALD TRUMP LIKES TO BRAG ABOUT his 1987 book “The Art of the Deal.” He has even, in his typical humble fashion, called it the second greatest book of all-time, behind the Bible. He says it’s the number one business book of all time (which of course it isn’t</a.).The book is part memoir and part business guide, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, little to none of it was actually written by Donald Trump.
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The Guy Who Wrote Trump's Most Famous Book Says He's a "Sociopath."
The book was actually written by ghostwriter Tony Schwartz, who now regrets his part in making Trump into a household name. Schwartz followed Trump around for 18 months in the mid-80’s in order to write the book, and believes he’d gained a unique insight on the man. But he hasn’t spoken publicly about Trump, as he’d made a lot of money off of writing The Art of the Deal. In a recent interview with The New Yorker, Schwartz explained why he ended his silence.
“‘I put lipstick on a pig,’ he said. ‘I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is.’ He went on, ‘I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.’
Schwartz now believes he’d sold out — his wife was pregnant with his second child at the time, and he was worried about money — but the money was too good for him to pass up.
Trump, he says, has no attention span unless he’s talking about how great he is. Schwartz tried to interview him on his childhood, but found that Trump got bored extremely quickly. “If he had to be briefed on a crisis in the Situation Room, it’s impossible to imagine him paying attention over a long period of time,” Schwartz told The New Yorker.
The writing process sounds like a nightmare — Trump would throw fits, would lie openly to Schwartz and everyone else, and basically acted like a child. But Schwartz tried to make him more sympathetic in the book, saying, “I created a character far more winning than Trump actually is.”
Schwartz still gets royalties from The Art of the Deal. But in 2016, he’s donating all that he gets to charities that help the people that Trump likes to target — immigrants, Muslims, and torture victims. “I’ll carry this until the end of my life,” he told The New Yorker, “There’s no righting it.”
True to form, Trump still claims that he wrote the entire book (which the publisher totally denies), and called Schwartz to chew him out after hearing about the interview. It’s worth reading the article in its entirety — the man it portrays is an honest-to-god sociopath, who cares very little about anything but himself. The Republican convention has begun, and it looks like there’s no stopping Trump from getting the nomination — but there’s still time to stop him from getting the Presidency. 
Via The New Yorker