Rolling Stone’s Bizarrely Personal Sit-Down With Donald Trump
New at rollingstone.com (and in the latest print issue): Writer Eric Hedegaard writes up a recent lunch with Donald Trump, who barks about everything from his ‘undies’ and his hair to – let’s not forget – his presidential aspirations, among many, many other topics. It’s the kind of bravura, nutball show we’ve come to expect from the Donald, but it’s unusually personal, too – and all the weirder for that. Here’s how the piece starts:
Like you, we’ve always wondered what’s inside Donald Trump’s wallet. So, on a recent visit to his office at the top of Trump Tower in Manhattan, the epicenter of his vast real estate empire and putative presidential ambitions, we ask him if we can take a look. He pulls it out, dips it down and hides it behind his huge desk, peers inside, saying, “Let me just see if there’s anything … ,” and then holds it out, fanning through it, revealing his Winged Foot Golf Club membership card and his very own gun permit, neither of which he apparently ever leaves home without.
“It’s a Donald J. Trump wallet,” he says, happily. He’s still a fairly big, fairly imposing guy at age 64, has hair that’s the patriotic shade of amber waves of grain, dresses like men of the world used to dress, in a dark suit, with a crisp, white shirt and a tie that’s the subtlest pink ever. “We sell them at Macy’s. They sell great. Hey — I have the number-one-selling tie in the country. What color tie do you like? Your tie looks like shit. Do you want a tie? It’s not a bribe. They’re nothing. I sell shirts, PVH, Phillips-Van Heusen. Cuff links.” He waves his arms around, shoots his cuffs to show off glittering cuff links. “Trump cuff links!” he shouts. “They’re magnificent! Everybody’s buying them! If I said I got them at Harry Winston, for $100,000, you’d believe it! Forty-nine dollars at Macy’s! Macy’s doesn’t even want to carry other brands! We blow them out!”
PLUS: Trump’s whole pitch for president is based on his being a successful tycoon (“We need a businessman,” he tells Hedegaard.) The only problem with that: his business record is rife with failure, bankruptcy and legal tangles. See here: Photo Gallery: The Many Business Failures of Donald Trump