Open Exchange: Beyond the Boardroom with Jonathan Tisch

Briarcliff, NY
Season 2, Episode 5

GUEST: Donald Trump, CEO, Trump Organization
OPEN EXCHANGE HOST: Jonathan Tisch

JONATHAN TISCH: Donald, were here at the beautiful Trump National in Briarcliff but it didnt start here for you and, like many on our show, it was all about Brooklyn. What were those days like? It was a few years ago but Brooklyn was Brooklyn.

DONALD TRUMP: We all come from Brooklyn when you get right down to it. My father was a builder mostly in Brooklyn but Brooklyn and Queens and so I know Brooklyn very well. I had my office there for five or six years before I broke into Manhattan and my father always had his office in Brooklyn and Queens and he really understood how to build and I learned a lot from him.

TISCH: He was your mentor. He was the person that really taught you about how to build things.

TRUMP: Well, he was my friend, he was my mentor, he was somebody that gave me confidence cause he really thought I was good at it. He was a tough cookie but he was a good guy and I learned a lot from my father.

TISCH: At a young age you went off to military school. Was that because you needed a little bit of discipline or you felt that you wanted to get out of Brooklyn for a couple years, get an education?

TRUMP: Well, it was really because my parents thought I needed discipline. I was actually a pretty good student but I was always sort of like on the edge and they put me in military school and we had a lot of girl sergeants and it was a good thing. It was actually very good for me, New York Military Academy. It worked out great and I went to the Wharton School of Finance and that was a lot of fun and did well but Wharton has been fantastic.

TISCH: We spare no expense in doing research at Open Exchange and we found out that you were considered a ladies man in military school.

TRUMP: Well, I was voted the ladies man. Now I dont know if thats a good thing or a bad thing. It certainly has been very expensive over the years. Theres no doubt about that. Its cost me a fortune but I love women. I like women a lot more than I like men and Ive had a lot of fun. Ive known great people but Ive known great, great women.

TISCH: When you had that conversation with your father, you walked into Freds office I assume one day and you said Dad, Im ready to hit Manhattan, I want to do it on my own. Was he there for you?

TRUMP: Well, my father was very unusual. He didnt really understand Manhattan because he could buy a foot of land in Brooklyn for 25 cents and in Manhattan that same foot of land would cost $500 and so it was a very different thing. Ill never forget. I was building Trump Tower and I was standing right opposite Harry Winston and Im looking up at this 68 story structure and my fathers with me and there are a lot of people watching and looking up and he really felt that I should use red brick because its much less expensive and he said nobody cares about what the outside of the building is, its all about how big are your closets, and thats sort of just a different-, you know, its a whole different mentality. And I was lucky in many respects that my father didnt come to Manhattan because he would have done very well in Manhattan and I wouldnt have been quite the same because I would have been a guy that liked to go over[ph?] property in Manhattan. So my father didnt really like Manhattan, didnt understand Manhattan, didnt want to understand it. He did great in Brooklyn and Queens and Staten Island and thats what he liked to do and Im glad it was that way.

TISCH: How did you have that confidence? How did you know that you could build Trump Tower at such an early, young age? What was it in you that said I can do this on the corner of 56th Street and Fifth Avenue in the heart of Manhattan?

TRUMP: Well, it could have been the confidence that my father instilled in me. You know, he was a very, very tough cookie and a lot of people were a little bit afraid of my father and it was hard to work with him because he was difficult and I found it very easy to work with him because I had a lot of successes and I had a lot of success in Brooklyn, I had a lot of success in Queens with apartment houses and things I did and it just worked out. And after you keep hitting home runs, even if its at a lower level, but you keep hitting those home runs all of a sudden somebody like a guy like my father, whos tough, says this guy can do it. So when I went to him and said I really want to go into Manhattan, I want to really do my own thing and I want to just get there, he wasnt in favor of it but he didnt do anything to stop me and ultimately he became very proud. He was my biggest booster. When my father was so proud of the things I did, hed go and tell his friends, it must have really turned them off because all he wanted to talk about was Donald and look what hes doing here, look what hes doing there. So he could not have been happier, he could not have been more proud.

TISCH: After some success in the 80s, the 90s were a little bit tough. What did you learn from that period that helped you once you started to rebuild the company and start over again?

TRUMP: It was a very interesting time for me. In the 1980s, everything I touched just worked and in all fairness we were riding an up market and we were doing a lot of different things but one of the major business magazines did a story, Everything He Touches Turns to Gold. That was in 1988 just before the crash and then we had a real estate crash at the very end of 1989 and the world changed and I never went bankrupt but a lot of my friends did, a lot of your friends did, and many of those people weve never seen again and weve never heard from, at least in a business sense weve never heard from again, but I never worked so hard, I never focused so hard as I did in the early 90s. It was a very tough time. I owed billions of dollars, the asset values had gone way down because of the- I called it a depression and it was a real estate depression certainly and a retailing and an everything else depression but it was a very bad period of time. And I worked very hard and was totally focused and I built the company into a much bigger, much stronger company than it ever was and I didnt do it with the B word and many of my friends, actually a couple of them have come out of bankruptcy and been successful but I just didnt want to do that. I owed so many billions of dollars it seemed almost like there was no chance for a period of time. In fact, one of the newspapers wrote on the front page It looks like Trump is finally gone. They were hoping so much and here we sit, Jon, but it was an interesting period of time. It was a very rough period of time but Im really glad I went through it for a number of reasons, number one, you learn whether or not you can take pressure and its like these guys on the pro golf tour, can they sink a three footer under pressure? Some can. Most cant. And the other thing is you learn who your friends are and during a bad period of time I had some really great friends and I also learned that I didnt have certain friends and those people, by the way, today, gonzo.[ph?]

TISCH: Theres a wonderful quote from you: What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate. I would assume during this period you probably were scared, you were probably nervous, you could see this whole thing crumbling in front of you but you persevered and you had many new twists of fate during that period.

TRUMP: Actually, Jon, I dont think I was scared. I dont think I was nervous. I just went to work. I dont think I had time to think about being scared. Sometimes thats good. I probably should have been scared. In fact, looking back theres something wrong with me if I wasnt. I have friends who literally crumbled under that pressure and I know them today and they say they could not handle- they couldnt handle it and you know me. I was pretty cool during that period of time in all fairness and that was a bad period of time but I almost think I was too busy. Every night I was going out with bankers, with lawyers, with everybody, and this is seven days a week, breakfasts, lunches, dinners. Every time I had free time and I wasnt utilizing it in dealing with somebody, I felt that I was at- because dont forget I had 99 banks. I had friends that were in trouble and they had two banks. I said I wish I had two banks but I had 99 banks but it just worked out great. It worked out probably better for me than if I didnt have the hard time and I learned who my friends were and you were one of my friends and so was your father. You never-- If I called you, you always took my call. There were some people that said hey, who needs,[ph?] right?

TRUMP: For whatever reason Ive always gotten a lot of media attention and I dont have PR people, I dont have this. I just get a lot of media attention and what happened with me was interesting because I got all this attention, I was the genius of the 80s, and then when things started going really bad they covered that the same way they covered the brilliance. So they cover the genius and they cover the idiot and it was a pretty tough period of time because you go from being this super hero into a period where youre just the opposite and you have to be able to take that stuff and I was able to take it. I learned that I was able to take pressure but I dont think of it as a comeback. I think-- I still went to the office but I was much more focused, I totally focused, and if you like making deals, boy, did I make deals. I was goin wild.

TISCH: Your father was very helpful during this period. He was there for you emotionally every single day.

TRUMP: Well, my father was there from an emotional standpoint. Now this time I got so big and it was such huge amounts of money that from a personal standpoint it was in a different category. I was having a difficult time with a divorce and I was having a difficult time with this and a lot of people blamed this on the divorce. They said that Trump created this problem so he could get out of his divorce but my father, when all his friends would say-- Probably the ones that he was bragging about where Donalds such a genius, now all of a sudden things are going badly and the worlds collapsing and the markets are collapsed and the real estate and you know what Im talking about. It was a disaster. If people would look at an apartment-- They didnt have to buy, they didnt have to rent, they didnt have to do any. If theyd just look at the apartment it would be great, okay? Then we consider that to be a major successful day. And Ill never forget my father was saying to people dont worry about Donald, hell be fine. He was truly not worried about it from a business standpoint but from a personal standpoint he didnt like it because he was married for 66 years, he didnt understand the word divorce, so he hated it from a personal standpoint and he was worried about me from a personal standpoint. He thought that wasnt good. From a business standpoint, he had absolutely no concern whatsoever. He figured Id work it out so it was sort of amazing.

TISCH: Then as you started to deal with the banks

TRUMP: These are things Ive never even talked about. Nobodys ever asked me these questions at an interview. Go ahead.

TISCH: As you started to deal with the banks, things were looking a little bit better, you made a decision I would assume, a conscious decision, to go back into real estate. Was that because that was what you knew and that was how you were going to rebuild your life?

TRUMP: Well, there were a lot of misconceptions. First of all, I kept a lot of my real estate. People said oh, he had to give up-- I didnt give up a lot of it. I have much of the real estate that I had. Then I did things that I shouldnt have been doing because I was in trouble but coming out of it and doing pretty well and I was starting to realize that I was doing well. This piece of land is an example. I bought this piece of land, its 215 acres in the middle of Westchester, I bought it for very, very little, then I created this great club. I bought this in 1992. I shouldnt have been buying anything in 1992. I was in trouble. The other banks that I owed billions of dollars to werent thrilled when they hear Im buying land in Westchester but I said Im buying land in Westchester so I can build it, I can sell it, I can make more money, Ill pay you off, but the fact is that things started going very well and the first one to find out that I was doing well was a writer named Ed Klein from Vanity Fair. It was a cover story that Trump is really doing well and it was about 1995 or so and Ed Klein figured it out frankly before anybody else and he wasnt a financial writer. So things started going well and then as I started doing really well people said oh, no, this is a disaster, and theyre still saying it, Jon, and we love that.

TISCH: Youre a product of the American business system. People aspire to be Donald Trump. Are there Donald Trumps out there today?

TRUMP: Well, there were a few people mentioned because theyre doing well in real estate and all somebody said that So and So- I wont mention the names but So and So, is he like you? And I said no, I had better locations because its true. I was able to get Trump Tower on 57th and Fifth adjoining Tiffany and all the wrapping around the Nike store is mine, all of that whole big complex is mine, and I have locations that are just better. I had half of Central Park South if you look at all the buildings I have on Central Park South and on Third Avenue and this and that. So I had really good locations and I was able to add to that by getting 40 Wall Street and I think thats probably the best location downtown. So I was very, very locationally oriented and I see people coming but I dont see the same locations and in our business its an important element. I hate the expression location, location, location because Ive seen people that are very dumb take great location and destroy it and Ive seen people that are very, very smart take frankly crummy locations and make a fortune. So I dont say location is the most important thing. Its certainly helpful but I had great locations and I dont see anybody with that. I look at some of these things being built today and I say who would be the idiot that would want to move in?

TISCH: Is it harder in todays world to make a good deal? There is so much capital out there. There are so many smart people doing the real estate game. Is it a little bit tougher to make that grand slam out of real estate?

TRUMP: Well, I think today you have these funds and you see funds with billions and billions of dollars and you have people running funds and some of them are very good and some of them are just terrible. Some of them dont know what theyre doing and yet they have a cash wad of $5 billion. So if youre an individual-- Its good that I have a lot of my real estate from past because today you go into bidding contests-- I bid on a piece in Los Angeles. I said my maximum bid will be $75 million. I dropped out at 110 so I wasnt very disciplined. Right? I said theres no way Im going more than 75 for a piece of land in Los Angeles and I ended up dropping out at 110 and somebody bid much more. So you say its very tough to get it and I would say that if you dont have a big reputation and great credit and cash its pretty hard to compete in the world of real estate today. I was lucky. I did a lot of deals like in Los Angeles again. I bought 300 acres out of a bankruptcy, the most incredible piece of land in the country where I have 2-1/2 miles along the Pacific Ocean in Los Angeles and Im building 75 incredible mansions and Ive just opened a golf course that people are saying is better than Pebble Beach and its been a real success but I was able to get that six years ago. Today if that were ever available somebody would build- bid a trillion dollars for it and it wouldnt necessarily be a professional, it would be a fund that wants to buy something, and 40 Wall Street, the way I got that. I got that very inexpensively. Today people would bid it up and- beyond all reason. So if you really think about it, in certain respects at least in real estate its harder but what you really do is you start. When I was going to the Wharton School of Finance I was buying little buildings and renovating them and selling them and having fun and I just did it. I did it instinctively, I did it naturally, and thats basically the way youre going to do it anyway. I think the big deals and the glamourous deals are very hard to get because there is so much money out there today.

TISCH: You know a lot of successful people and when you deal with these people you know that they have a strong ego. Youve been quoted as saying, Show me someone without an ego and Ill show you a loser. Why is that?

TRUMP: Well, maybe the word loser is too strong because thats a pretty strong word but the fact is that the people that I know that are successful have big ego. I dont think ego is a bad thing. Ive seen people that are very happy, Ive seen people that are very secure. They might not have an ego. Maybe theyre smarter than we are, Jon. They have a normal life. Okay. We dont have a normal life but the fact is that generally speaking, if were talking about the word success, its the people with the big ego that become the big success.

TISCH: What do you want your legacy to be? What do you want people to remember about Donald Trump?

TRUMP: I really think just that I did a really good job. I do top quality and thats what I want people to think.

TISCH: Youre now expanding, putting Trump buildings and golf course in other parts of the world. Youve going to a big project in Dubai so youve seen that there is opportunity overseas. Do you worry about our countrys competitive stance? Do you worry that America is not going to be able to compete going forward with whats going on in China and India and Asia?

TRUMP: People are coming to me from China. People are coming to me from India. Dubai is a great example of something that is just amazing. Im doing a building there thats going to be one of the great buildings of the world. Theyre coming to me from places that five years ago you would have said unthinkable although we all knew that China and India was the sleeping giant. They have been awoken and you are going to have competition in this country that weve never had before from an entrepreneurial standpoint and its a little bit scary and frankly, unless we get great, great leadership, this country may not be quite this country as we know it for long. You look at whats going on in the world and you look at whats happening in Iraq and where were spending money and where other countries are laughing at us for being so stupid frankly. They look at us and they say they are the dumbest people to be doing what were doing in Iraq right now and its going to be a very tough, competitive world out there, China, India in particular, I think those two in particular, and Ive probably got 10 proposals from each country to do something spectacular in each country and of those two countries. In Dubai, you know what Im doing over there. You will look at that hotel and say wow, that couldnt happen in New York. Its really tough. The other thing we have, we have an environmental situation thats unbelievable. You go to China and you see theyre filling up the sea and theyre creating 9,000 acres in the ocean and I say Did you get environmental impact statements because if you ever did that in New York-- If you drop a pebble in the Hudson River, one pebble, you will be electrocuted, they will give you the electric chair. Here theyre filling up thousands and thousands of acres of ocean and they look at me and they say what are you talkin about, its the ocean, do you know how big it is? And thats true and if you look at a map and you fill in 5,000 acres of ocean it doesnt even show up its so small, its a speck. So the environmental impact stuff, the zoning things in New York, you could never build the building-- If I went to Mayor Bloomberg, who I think is great and I think hes doing a great job as mayor, but if I went in all fairness to him and said I want to do the hotel that Im doing in Dubai in New York people would say are you serious, it has to be contextual, it has to conform to the building next door, the building next door is 14 stories, you cant go any higher. Its ridiculous. So a lot of the great architecture has been taken out of New York. If you look as an example-- If you lopped off- and this was something that somebody told me 10 years ago and Ive never forgotten it, but if you took the New York City skyline and above 40 stories you lopped off every building so that you wouldnt have the Chrysler building, the Empire State building, 40 Wall Street and many of the great buildings, the Woolworth building, you would have a very boring looking city but you cant build those buildings anymore. The zoning doesnt allow it. So its a real problem.

TISCH: When did you learn that by putting the Trump name on a building, on a product, on clothing, when did you understand the value of your name?

TRUMP: Well, first of all, I have sort of a good name and I was fortunate to have the name Trump. Its the winning card, its the winning hand, its a good name, and what happened, I did the Grand Hyatt Hotel with the Prinsca[ph?] family and Hyatt. It became a very successful job. At the same time I was doing the convention center because I took an option on the land and I was doing the convention center. I was thinking about calling it the Trump Convention Center but ultimately I sold that to the state and I stopped them from building one in the river that would have been a catastrophe. It would have been a disaster. So the Jacob Javits Convention Center is a deal that I did. Then I started saying Im doing these great things but nobody knows who I am and why would they know who I am and when I got the site of Bonwit Teller where Trump Tower now sits and then a great man named Walter Hoving who ran Tiffany, he was a great man, one of the most elegant men Ive ever met and a man of his word, I made the deal to buy the air[ph?] rights from Tiffany and one of the things I had the right to do is call it Tiffany Towers and I went to a friend of mine and I said I have this thing to call it Tiffany Tower and who would ever give that up but Id rather call it Trump Tower, and he was a smart guy, a very streetwise guy, a good businessman. He said when you change your name to Tiffany call it Tiffany Tower and I said thank you, that was very, very helpful, and I called it Trump Tower and for the first six months I was so embarrassed. Id always talk about-- I had an office across the street and Id say that building that Im building across the street. I couldnt say Trump Tower and then it got easier and easier and now its become a great building and a great landmark.

TISCH: Your name is on a lot of products today and its Trump, the brand. You have created a brand with your name and people know what to expect. They know its going to be quality and that its going to be well made. Are there things that you wouldnt put the Trump name on?

TRUMP: There are things that I turn down every day. I would say that for every shirt that I say lets do a great shirt with Phillips van Heusen and lets sell it in Macys theres 20 things that we turn down. I get ideas and proposals that are crazy. Were doing now a great furniture line and I think itll be very successful but for every one of them that I do we turn down so much.

TISCH: Whats it like to pick up a newspaper and see Trump this and Trump that? Does it really make you feel like youve arrived and

TRUMP: Its a great question, Jon, but in a certain way I dont like thinking about it because I know how fragile it is. I dont go around saying oh, look, I have this, I have that. People think I do and I actually dont because I understand how fragile life is. Its day to day. I think very much about the future. I also think very much about the past because you have to learn from the past. If you dont learn from the past, if you dont learn from history, then youre not a very smart person. Saddam Hussein, he lost his country. All he had to do was say come on in, folks, look around. They would have found nothing and that possibly would have been the best thing that could have happened to us if you want to know the truth but one thing about Saddam Hussein, he hated terrorists, he would kill the terrorists. Now Iraq is the big terror capital of the world so its really a problem but he lost his country so things happen that are very, very strange. So I dont go around saying that. I just love what Im doing.

TISCH: You have a fairly well known TV show called The Apprentice

TRUMP: What do you mean, fairly

TISCH: I was being a little facetious. Just because it was in the top 10 forever and

TRUMP: Its also number one.

TISCH: Ill rephrase it.

TRUMP: Thats all right.

TISCH: You have a very well known TV show and its about hiring people

TRUMP: And firing people.

TISCH: And firing people

TRUMP: Mostly its hiring people.

TISCH: Would you today hire Donald Trump?

TRUMP: Well, Ill tell you, Donald Trump is very aggressive, very imaginative. I have a lot of assets. Im not sure Id be great working for somebody. I have some people that work for me that are terrific that in many respects I couldnt do what they do because they know how to handle me better than I would be able to handle myself so Im not sure. I have certain assets but I have plenty of liabilities.

TISCH: Is there anything that you regret?

TRUMP: Well, I dont think so. I dont like to regret. I like to look back to learn but I dont like to look back to change. I learned so much from my mistakes, probably far more from my mistakes, and we all make them, Jon, and I learned far more from my mistakes than I learned from my great success. I have a television show. They said dont do it and it became the number one show on television. Everyone said dont do it, itll never work. They probably tell you the same thing but I know its going to work because you have Trump on, youre going to get very high ratings, okay, but the fact is, and Im sure they did tell you your show is not going to work, but your show is a great show. I enjoy your show and a lot of people enjoy your show but they told me The Apprentice could never work because its business in prime time and theres never been a business show that worked in prime time. Number two, theres never been a person that went from being a businessman to a television person that became what happened. So all of the people that said The Apprentice wasnt going to work, they then call me and they say by the way, the show went to number one and its become this great success. I view it as just experience. Its an experience, the whole thing. Life is an experience. I cant say that if I had it to do would I have done certain things different. I guess we all would. You wouldnt have gone out with certain women and I wouldnt have gone out with certain women and I would have gone out with others and we would have all done different things but I dont view it that way. I learned so much from certain things I did that probably I shouldnt do and I think it made me much more successful ultimately.

TISCH: I love this one line: Anyone who thinks my story is anywhere near over is sadly mistaken.

TRUMP: Well, I feel young. Im not as young as I look. It was so sad because a guy called me up and he was a friend of mine in high school. He was a really handsome guy, the women loved him, he was a great football star. I always say he was going to be a professional and I hadnt seen him in years and now he calls me. Hes in New York with his wife, could he come up? And I said to the girls wait until you see how great this guy is, hes handsome, hes got the whole ball game, and this big, fat guy walks into my room. He looked like hell. I wont go into too much description because it sort of describes all of us, okay, but he looked like hell. And I said the sad part is hes probably looking at me and saying I cant believe how bad he looks, he used to look so wonderful. So things change and you just go along with it.

TISCH: Thank you, Donald.

TRUMP: Thank you very much.

TISCH: I never worked so hard. You go from being this super hero into a period where youre just the opposite and you have to be able to take that stuff. These are things Ive never even talked about. Nobodys ever asked me these questions at an interview. I was fortunate to have the name Trump. Its the winning card, its the winning hand, its a good name. Its funny. When you have a friend doing this you open up more and some guy is asking me these questions I say dont even get there. Right? And now I say what the-- That--