PRESIDENT TRUMP: UNRULY
His dad gave him $1m loan Finances still a mystery
MODERATE Americans are praying that the bellicose figure they have witnessed these past few months is not the one who will be president.
That Trump the man, not Trump the candidate, enters the White House, and that he’s a man capable of living up to his victory pledge to unite their disjointed country.
But getting to the core of Donald John Trump – dubbed Teflon Don by some in the US who claim nothing sticks to him – is not easy.
The political enigma who flip-flopped between the Democrats and Republicans for two decades is full of contradictions.
He was born in a mock-Tudor home in the comfortable New York suburb of Queens on June 14, 1946, the fourth of five children of real estate tycoon Fred Trump, who taught Donald the value of self-promotion and defeating your rivals.
“My father was my inspiration,” he said when Fred died in 1999.
Trump was a difficult child sent to the New York Military Academy at 13, to learn discipline, after his strict father found a flick-knife in his bedroom.
His room-mate Ted Levine said: “People liked him, but he didn’t bond with anyone… it was like he had this defensive wall around him and he wouldn’t let anyone get close.”
After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, he entered real estate with a “small million dollar loan” from his father before joining, and eventually taking control of the firm, which he renamed the Trump Organization.
In 1983 he opened his flagship, 58-storey Trump Tower, where he now lives and runs his business from.
It hasn’t been plain-sailing for the flamboyant mogul.
His failures included the real estate-oriented Trump University, Trump Mortgage, Trump Airlines and Trump Vodka but it was his experience with four casinos in New Jersey, and four business bankruptcies, 1 There should be surveillance on mosques in the US. Trump thinks Muslims should be tracked by law enforcement as a counter-terrorism initiative. 2 The US should use waterboarding and other methods of “strong interrogation” against Islamic State terrorists. 3 Saddam Hussein was praiseworthy. He said: “He was a bad guy – really bad guy. But you know what? He did well. He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn’t read them the rights. They didn’t talk. They were terrorists. Over.” 4 Syrian migrants seeking asylum in the US should be turned away because the Paris attacks prove even a handful of terrorists posing as migrants could cause severe carnage. that dented the reputation of his brand the most. At one point he gestured to a homeless man in the street, and claimed to be $900million poorer than him due to his immense debt.
Today his finances are shrouded in mystery mainly because he won’t reveal his tax returns. He claims to have a fortune of $10billion, (£8.05billion) but Forbes magazine put it at a more modest $3.7billion. However, some experts believe he missed out on
He was sent to a military academy at 13 to learn discipline by his strict father
many more billions as, if he had invested his inheritance in a stock market linked fund he could have $8-13billion.
His book The Art of the Deal offered the first insight into how he believed he’d become a success magnet.
It spent 48 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, 13 of them at No.1. Not only did the 1987 book generate millions of dollars in royalties, it expanded Trump’s fame way beyond New York making him a global business icon. It really should have been called The Art of Self-Promotion.
Soon he had effortlessly conquered popular culture, owning the Miss Universe beauty pageant, taking acting roles in TV shows and films, and in 2000 achieving global stardom with the US version of TV show The Apprentice. It was nominated for an Emmy Award eight times but never won, though he did get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (the 2,327th one) in 2007.
He was also inducted into the celebrity wing of the WWE Hall of Fame three years ago and is a huge fan of both wrestling as well as golf. He has even built a course in Scotland - somewhere he loves thanks to his Scottish mother Mary.
As he made his way up New York’s property ladder he also climbed the social one, dating some of the city’s most glamorous women. He’s been married three times, his first, Ivana Zelnickova, a Czech athlete and model, who also coined his nickname “The Donald”, courtesy of her broken English, in an interview in 1989.
He was even said to have offered to pay his wife $250,000 for each child she gave him – they had three, Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric, before they filed for divorce in 1990.
While married to Ivana he had an affair with actress Marla Maples before they married in 1993.
They had a daughter Tiffany before divorcing in 1999.
He married his current wife Melania Knauss, model and soon-to-be First Lady, in 2005, and the couple have one