We'll let Tim O'Brien have his say today. He's a biographer of Trump, who Trump sued for defamation (claiming that O'Brien didn't make his as rich as he insisted he was),and O'Brien not only won -- but he got to see Trump's taxes on a non-disclosure agreement. O'Brien was a guest on Nicolle Wallace's show yesterday, and told a story that speaks loudly about who Trump is on a couple of levels. The first is something that got hinted about early on, but has eventually gotten largely lost amid all the other Transgressions of Trump, like trying to overthrow the government, four indictments, being found liable for the equivalence of rape, being found guilty of business fraud, enabling white supremacists and, well, y'know, the whole fascism and wanting to be a dictator thing. What O'Brien talks about is Trump's ties to the Mob. And the second thing is that Trump swaggers and talks tough, but like most insecure bullies, if there's a risk of getting pushed back, he retreats. O'Brien began his conversation this way -- "Donald Trump's first partners in Atlantic City, Ken Shapiro, a bag man for the Philadelphia mob, and a labor racketeer named Danny Sullivan. Those were his two partners in Atlantic City. When Trump Tower got built, 80 percent of Trump Tower was built with concrete at a time when all the skyscrapers in Manhattan had long since converted to building their high-rises out of steel." "Why?" Nicolle Wallace interrupts. "Well, I mean, you know, I suspect because he was getting a sweetheart deal from the mob, and why he needed to get concrete and it was very mobbed up," said O'Brien. "He built a very palatial apartment. When Donald and I talked about this down in Mar-a-Lago, he said, you know, I went to John Cody and I told him what's what and that guy never, ever messed with me because he knew who he was dealing with. And then he pauses and he says, he's still in jail, right? It finally dawned on Mr. Tough Guy that John Cody isn't somebody he'd want to tangle with in public, and he'd want to make sure he's still in jail because Donald Trump, like every classic bully — if you push back, it's often masking infantile weaknesses." O'Brien went on: "He's not a tough person when you scratch past the surface, but he fetishizes mobsters. When we talked in the top of the hour, what he said to me about John Gotti, that he sort of wanted to model himself on John Gotti. Because John Gotti was such a tough S.O.B. He would sit in the courtroom, and he wouldn’t flinch, and he wouldn’t cry, and he’d stare down the judge and the jury, and that’s how you should roll. And he’s compared himself on the campaign trail to Al Capone. This is someone who has a cartoonish, juvenile and dangerous fixation on how mobsters are to be honored, and how they roll in society, and he models himself on that." You can watch it here, as well. (Normally, I'd have just posted the video, and O'Brien tells the story so well. But I thought it read particularly well. So, you get a Daily Double, of sorts.)
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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