My friend Donald is not the new Hitler. He is a swaggering, shameless braggart... who might just make America great again
SEE you at the White House,’ said my friend Donald Trump the last time I saw him in New York several months ago. He wasn’t joking. ‘I’m going to win, and I’m going to win big,’ he clarified, with his usual astonishing selfconfidence. Then he gave me a bear-hug and marched off with his Secret Service detail.
In just two days, the world will discover if the flamboyant, controversial billionaire real estate tycoon was right or not. Polls are tightening, pundits are hedging their bets, and, frankly, nobody knows what’s going to happen.
Hillary Clinton remains favourite – just. But the Trump Train’s been surging in recent days since the email scandal returned to haunt his rival. He has, after all, proven almost everyone wrong throughout every stage of this election.
Either way, the fact he’s even got this far is truly extraordinary.
Trump’s done it by ripping up the political rulebook and doing it his way, which is a swaggering, bragging, often outrageous and deeply divisive way. But I’m neither as shocked nor as appalled as most Britons seem to be.
I’ve known the man very well for nearly a decade since I competed in – and won – the first series of his Celebrity Apprentice USA show. To understand Trump the politician, it’s necessary to understand that, at his heart, he’s a shameless salesman, astute marketeer, self-publicist extraordinaire, and a big, bold, brash, ballsy, uncompromising braggart prepared to do whatever it takes to seal a deal.
These are some quotes from his bestselling book, Art Of The Deal:
‘Everyone wants to kill the fastest gun.’
‘When somebody screws you, screw them back in spades.’
‘Go for the jugular so that people watching you will not want to mess with you.’
TO TRUMP, the race for the White House is another deal to be closed. If he pulls it off, it will have the same seismic effect on America as Brexit has had on Britain, and the reasons would be similar. Brexit campaigners, led by Nigel Farage, were vilified, as Trump has been. They were branded vile, ignorant, sexist, racist monsters and their supporters dismissed as Right-wing lunatics. There was no chance, the Remainers sneered, of these Neanderthals ever winning.
This proved to be spectacularly self-defeating. Brexit happened because 2.5million people who don’t normally vote in political elections felt compelled to do so. Most were Brexiteers, many incensed by the way they had been demonised. Much the same dynamic applies to this US election.
The big unknown factor that will be keeping Hillary awake at night is how many Silent Trumpers are out there, preparing to vote for the first time. If Trump can persuade enough of them, particularly white, working class men in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Nevada and North Carolina, to vote for him, he can win.
I’ve been in the biggest battleground state of Florida all week, filming a new series of my Killer Women crime documentaries, and the strength of support for Trump was astonishing. A female taxi driver from a ‘solid Democrat family’ gave a raucous, chuckle when I asked who had her vote. ‘Trump!’ she yelped. ‘He’s a tough, plain-speaking businessman who gets stuff done.’
When I asked if his controversial comments, especially about women, were a problem, she replied: ‘Hell no! I like him because he says s**t and sometimes it’s good s**t and sometimes it’s bad s**t. I’m the same.’
A male prison officer told me: ‘I’m voting Trump not because I like him but because he’ll sort out Washington and fight for the little guys like me. I don’t have to like my President – I just want him to make my life better than it is now.’
A middle-aged policewoman was more euphoric. ‘Trump’s my guy. He’s his own man, with his own money. He takes a howitzer to a knuckle fight. He makes me laugh, too. We need change, and we need it from someone who isn’t one of those damn politicians.’ If Trump wins Florida – and from my anecdotal experience last week I’d be amazed if he doesn’t – he’s halfway to the White House.
The antipathy towards Hillary is quite extraordinary. An ABC-Washington Post poll last week showed that Trump is deemed by Americans to be eight per cent more trustworthy than Hillary, who has the lowest approval ratings of any Democrat candidate in history. Many can’t stand her and the scale may not be showing up in the polls. So yes, it remains a real possibility that we may wake up on Wednesday to the words: ‘Donald Trump is the new President of the United States.’
If he does, this is the big question: what the hell will Donald Trump’s America be like? First, relax. He’s not the new Hitler, as some would have you believe. From my experience, Trump’s bark is more dangerous than his bite. He shoots from the hip to grab headlines, but usually modifies his stance later.
I’ve never believed he would go through with some of the crazier stuff. Oh, he might build his infamous ‘big, beautiful wall’ to stop illegal immigrants pouring over the Mexican border (as 2.5million have done during Obama’s tenure), but given there’s
already armed security and fencing along that border, this would just be a bigger, more effective and expensive version of what already exists.
I don’t think for a moment he would try to deport the 11million undocumented immigrants already in the US. Nor, as many fear, will he be throwing Muslims out of America and banning every Muslim from coming in.
To widespread outrage a year ago, Trump suggested a shortterm block on Muslims ‘to figure out what’s going on’ the day after a home-grown Islamic terror attack in San Bernardino, California, left 20 people dead.
Now Trump has watered down this very bad idea to say he wants much stronger immigration checks on anyone entering America from war-torn countries such as Syria and Iraq, where Islamic extremism is raging.
If he’d said that to start with, nobody would have batted an eyelid. Everything to him is negotiable. He’s taken extreme positions to ram home a message that gets everyone talking, then settles on something less extreme. It’s brutal, cynical politics but it’s been undeniably successful.
One place that could do with some of Trump’s deal-making skills is Washington and the US Congress – a paralysed cesspit which has grown intransigently incapable of reaching agreement about almost anything. Trump would shake them up like a ravenous gorilla getting stuck into a large tree of old, rotting bananas.
And that may be just what they, and America, need. I once asked him: ‘Donald, if you were the CEO of Washington Incorporated, how many times would you be saying, “You’re fired!”’ His answer revealed his negotiating technique. ‘A lot, but they have to learn to get along. We have a President [Obama] who is not leading and not getting people into a room and not shouting, and cajoling, and laughing, and having a good time, or having a terrible time. All these different emotions are things you have to do to make deals for the good of the country.’
I could see him deploying similar negotiating tactics on the global stage. Trump’s already indicated he would pursue a cordial relationship with Vladimir Putin. Is this really so bad? Hillary’s so entrenched in her public and private hatred for Putin that a new Cold War would exist in all but name if she wins the White House.
President Trump, as he’s indicated, would invest heavily in the military and go hard after Islamic State. Flexing his business skill muscles, he’d also go after countries like China, Japan and Mexico for new trade deals, and after Opec for better terms on oil.
He would also push for other Nato member countries to pay a bigger share of the costs. I don’t think he’ll stop America being the world’s policeman where necessary, but he will stop it bearing most of the financial burden.
Trump’s main focus, though, will be domestic, not foreign. He’s
said his priority will be getting unemployed Americans back to work, and all paying less tax. I can see him strong-arming US companies such as Apple and Starbucks to open more factories inside America, and offering others attractive tax breaks to follow suit.
He’d abolish Obamacare, the President’s flagship health plan which has been an unmitigated disaster. On social issues, he’s flip-flopped all over the place, for pure political expediency, but I’ve spent a lot of time around Trump and he is quite moderate… for a Republican. He is sceptical about same-sex marriage but otherwise he has been broadly supportive of gay rights. He opposes abortion, but has supported many parts of Planned Parenthood.
I can’t see him rushing to embrace the nationwide legalisation of cannabis because he’s a teetotaller who’s never touched a drink, cigarette or drug.
Of course, there would also be some big negatives. He has been scornful of climate change. And he would do nothing with regard to new gun control laws, which is why I could never vote for him.
But as for concerns about his temperament and how he would behave, I think President Trump would be a different animal to Candidate Trump. We’ve seen in the past ten days how cool, calm and collected he can be when he wants. The Donald I know is a smart, streetwise, charming (yes, seriously!) guy who runs his businesses by putting good people into top jobs and letting them get on with it. That’s no bad management style for a president.
He’s taken the most ferocious whacking in recent weeks, much of it self-induced like the dreadful Access Hollywood sex tape, but it’s never once put him off his stride.
So all things considered, I don’t think the prospect of President Trump should terrify everyone. It’s a resilient country, with myriad checks and balances to stop a president going rogue. It might even thrive under his more direct chest-beating leadership and regain some of the confidence many feel the nation has lost. Who knows, he might actually succeed in his mission statement to Make America Great Again.
Stranger things have happened. As he reminded me when I saw him in New York, Leicester City won the Premier League last season at odds of 5,000-1. Nobody gave them a chance but a combination of strong leadership, energy, focus and determination allowed them to pull off one of the greatest shocks in sporting history. How? The complacent, elite, big establishment teams just never thought it could happen… until it was too late.