This book is my attempt to make sure Americans know a fuller story about Trump than the one he has polished and promoted with such exceptional skill and determination. In his introduction to his insightful and challenging portrait of America’s forty-fifth president, David Cay Johnstone makes a bold claim: that in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election Trump’s campaign was treated as a bid for publicity and a joke, but ‘not me’ he says. It is a statement he supports in a book that draws on decades of interviews, financial records, court documents, and public statements. David Cay Johnston, who has covered Trump more closely than any other journalist working today, gives the most in-depth look yet at Trump’s rise to power and the dangers his presidency may hold for the American people and the world at large. From the origins of his family’s real estate fortune, to his own too-big-to-fail business empire; from his education and early career, to his whirlwind presidential bid, The Making of Donald Trump provides the fullest picture yet of Trump’s extraordinary ascendency. Love him or hate him, Trump’s massive influence is undeniable, and figures as diverse as Woody Guthrie (who wrote a scathing song about Trump’s father) and Red Scare prosecutor Roy Cohn, mob bosses and high rollers, as well as the average American voter, have all been pulled into his orbit. Covering the long arc of Trump’s career, Johnston tells the full story of how a boy from a quiet section of Queens, NY would become an entirely new, and complex, breed of public figure. Trump is a man of great media savvy, entrepreneurial spirit, and political clout. Yet his career has been plagued by legal troubles and mounting controversy.As his presidency dawns, this is a book that offers not only an assessment of the man who would be president but of the system that escalated his rise to power. ‘A devastating attack ….[Johnston] carefully disentangles the knot of lies that has so far characterised Trump’s presidential campaign.’ —The Independent ‘Johnston devastatingly covers ground he broke open as a reporter on the Trump beat in Philadelphia and at The New York Times…The best of investigative reporting is brought to bear on a man who could potentially lead the free world.’ — USA Today David Cay Johnston is an investigative journalist and winner of a 2001 Pulitzer Prize for journalism. A reporter for the New York Times he is also the author of several New York Times bestsellers, including Perfectly Legal and Free Lunch. He has won the IRE Medal and a George Polk Award for his investigative reporting, and is a columnist for the Daily Beast, National Memo, and USA Today.
