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See world service. I'm rob watson, and this is the first in a series of presidential profiles of president elect Joe Biden. Vice president Carmelo harris, and starting with President Donald trump got old, John trump do solemn. Swear that I will faithfully execute, he was the business on tv show host who became the forty five presidents of the united states with huge power and resources at his fingertips over the next half hour, I'll be I need to tell the life story of one of the most extraordinary people to occupy the oval office. Best of my ability and well to the best of my ability, the rich kid from new york's out a bar of queens, inherited a fool. june and with a partial for skyscrapers, beautiful women and celebrity headed across the river to manhattan, creating a brand that would eventually clinch him the biggest steel of all.

The white house. Congratulations! Mr president, Donald trump had long been fast, talking, controversial character with its turn of phrase just made for the age of social media. We are fighting the fake dues, its fake phoning. Thank you. Hilary brook in sleepy john little rocket man. We are going to drain the swamp in washington d c. That wall built that wall built that war. We assembled here today issuing a new degree to be heard In every city, in every foreign cap, Joe his inauguration speech. He sets out his populist vision from this day forward. Going to be only america. First,

america first His admirers, president trump was always a man just telling it like it is I I came here in support of him because he supports us three they say what makes you say that you ve done it? That's why I love you. Nobody else has the gods to stand up and say what he said to his many detractors. He was a dangerous unprincipled demo. We need a president rehab now. We have a five year old running. So who is this deeply divisive? Man He was born in june. Nineteen forty six and grow up in the well to do jamaica estates. Neighbourhood of queen

new york? They had one was grad. How's is really really nice to me that the two pillars- and we said joke the white house and was really limousine. We ever had seen and is wealthy as a teenager, richie notes are used to mow the trump family's lawn and it was odd that fred, Fred trump his license plate said fred, so we're kind of like oh this fred, almost like a mini celebrity of the, which is funny because you know that's how donald kind of took over that same persona, like you, know yourself, real estate, you're, not a celebrity, but he made himself celebrity fred trump made his money building low and middle income. Housing in queens and neighbouring brooklyn fred himself was the child of german. emigrants to new york, even though later Donald would falsely claim that free was born in germany and his mother. My mother was born in scotland in the hebrides and store

why so that serious scotland, by all accounts, Donald the fourth of five children, was but of a handful when young he had a very difficult childhood and it was a cold household, lance mary trump donald trump niece she's, a psychologist who wrote a scathing book about her uncle cold too much and never enough, how my family created the world's most dangerous man. He is a deeply damaged man who constantly needs to have his ego propped up he's so desperate to be admired that it's it's quite easy to manipulate him

and that's a grave concern. It was when he was thirteen that Donald was sense. The new york military academy, a private boarding school later. He would claim that he was top of his class, though there is no evidence of that. In nineteen. Sixty eight Donald did graduates with an economics degree from the wharton school of the university of Pennsylvania, a business school in philadelphia. He managed to avoid being drafted in the vietnam war through medical deferments. He joined the family.

Firm mary tromp was asked why it was donald and not her own father, fred junior, the oldest son, who took over the firm because my father couldn't be the tough guy in the killer. My grandfather required in his namesake an air donald realised that that was something he shouldn't do, so he tried to become the killer that my grandfather required and was able to step into that spot by nineteen. Seventy one donald trump had become company presidents of the trump business. He soon cast his eyes across new Eggs east river towards manhattan, richie notes, are down on got into the game in real estate and I will say in a bit of a knucklehead, but he did take. Is fathers beginnings and take it into manhattan. He had grander visions of what can happen, so I think that he had

of courage to do that. He wanted to change the skyline of new york, which is a mighty big mary Well, the ambition for a young man, stanley renshon as a professor of political science at the city university of new york and a practicing psycho analyst he's the author of the real psychology of the president, say they had monumental ambition. Very early age. It really is monumental that word really fit, I know he was a young guy. He lived in queen to work first father for years his father said, you know, looked stay in queens work in the business you'll make some money but donald wonder, makers mark and show He went over into manhattan. Any did do what set out to do rich toll blonde and fun loving, and the nineteen seventeen tromp was considered one of new york's, most eligible bachelors before marrying his first wife Evanna, a former member of the church.

a junior national skating donald- avant had three children, donald junior. If I'm and eric by them, seen aces Donald, an avant trump were a fixture of the new york tabloids. Oh, I thought tat. I was bad and he was very outspoken down really saw a new horizons for different real estate projects, newcastle was at the center of the new york party scene back then, when you are totally re style, Donald Clinton of cobra or downloaded everything that was a very devoted new yorker when the trump tower and it was one of the most amazing buildings in manhattan called that guy of me on this matter, The his ambitions in this period were to be

other great new york, buccaneer of real estate, Marie renault was right writ large of vanity fair magazine. She wrote about donald trump and his wife trumps, a young man on the make with toddlers with his wife evanna. She was wearing her terry mobile or out fits in white around the construction site. They were very much on the make you would go to their small apartment before they moved into tromp tower. They had fairly lights up, lining the stairs and they had a collection of stupid glass. They had gold mylar floors in a very small kitchen. They were two extra. Lamb, ambitious, very smart, very determined, real estate developers who were cutting every kind of corner they could to make their way donald trump. developed a bizarre way of talking up his achievements. He would phone up journalists,

as if he was a spokesman for well himself. He often city was john An old your miller, mark fisher from the Washington post newspaper, wrote a biography He called trump revealed. He spent many hours interviewing donald trump in twenty. Sixteen before he became president, we had obtained recordings of a couple of these calls and his voice was quite evidently donald trump voice. Started tremendously off going well this out to him and he completely denied having done this and yet at the same time he was gone being ear to ear and was quite proud that he pulled that offer year after year, the ultimate product and symbol of postwar america and its love money, fame success in shopping, Donald trump shoe

We became more than just a rich man, but a brand money does not by happiness, and it does not by lots of other things, but it certainly makes life easier and it really does create it. Lets me create what I wanna do artistically, because I'm an artist in a certain sense, a monotonous. I build the greatest buildings in the world and on the biggest develop new york city, I live, I love what I'm doing and I put up great things. He brought an airline and cold at trump shuttle here. And some licensed his name's or raft of products, including trump mortgage tromp, restaurants, trump ice cream, trump, vodka, trump stakes, a trump fragrance trump,

golf courses, a trump men's, where line even minutes talking donald trump dulls. I think the Donald trump's chief talent in life is to market himself to market his brand, and he has done that in such a way that has made him the ultimate success in nineteen eighty seven, the book the The deal was published on the trumps name, but in fact written by ghost riser. It reached number one on the new york times best seller list and help make trump a household name during the twenty sixteen presidential car, pain, Donald trump said it was his second favorite book after the bible, tina brown was the editor. Vanity, fair magazine. When the book was published, she wrote

Her diary is that meeting donald trump was like being knows too knows with a con man, but she also found this funny brash guy, pretty appealing at the time that changed later on, we started to cover him really more intensely and obtain these financial shenanigans on his divorced from Havana. Then he didn't like it at all. Anyone actually ballistic when one of our writers right wrote this peace saying how he had a copy of hitler's speeches on the desk huge when it made him fc bizarre, so angry that when he met her at a dinner party shortly afterwards, he emptied wind down the back of a dream then sped off the other side of the room without so much as a second thought in the late nineteenth is the trump empire was in trouble. Some of his call businesses rack up huge losses into the billions of dollars.

And as the u s economy went into recession, so did the trump empire in the BBC interview. He described that time. I have faced the possibility of losing everything. Fortunately, for him, the banks and his father failed him out. I went back to work. I focus my mental energies and all of my energies hidden stop and I I did persevere. I went against a lot of odds in ninety. Ninety two donald and Ivana had a high profile divorce. The next year he married his second wife, the actress marla maples. They had a daughter, tiffany but divorced after six years. He married his third wife milan, we're in two thousand and five, a year later she gave birth to their son, byron throughout his marriages that was stores of adultery and sexual misconduct you're out of her with a girl you, simplification, smokers

just a month before the twenty? Sixteen presidential election, a videotape emerged of an extremely lewd conversation, Donald trump had a decade before, with a tv host or where and when we started elected, You can do anything, but everyone want. I can do anything. It caused uproar across the political spectrum and Several women accused him of sexual assault, hidden All the allegations and apologised for the contents of the video, adding that bill Clinton had said much worse to him on the golf course. It was a characteristic deflection. There were also plenty of tales of donald trump seeking revenge on those who upset him personally or in business I believe strongly in getting even if somebody is hurt, you of somebody's got out of their way to hurt you. I think that if you have the opportunity, you should certainly go out of your way to do a number of them. I believe, in an eye for an eye. I just don't believe

strictly and turning the other cheek. Getting to the truth. Tromp is always a difficult, sometimes precarious exercise. Some o brien spent weeks and when doing research for his two thousand and five biography trump nation, the arts of being the donald. He loves junk food would he like sitting around watching sports on the tv on a friday night, instead of social seen, there's a lot of things about him that are very likeable. He's playful he's thought Oh you know in a lot of ways he's like a teenage boy, he's got sort of a teenagers, enthusiasm and sometimes tangiers lack of self and I remember- we ran his plane flying from new, or to los angeles and somewhere over the middle, the country. He came up anymore, go watch a movie together. And he popped pop fiction into the tv council on the jet and kept test forming the film too

friend points in it were. There was dialogue that he just loved him any would stop the film and do voice overs and then just begin laughing. The. though it became no laughing matter where his finances were concerned. Donald trump was like, to portray himself as a super success well, multi billion. He sat me down with his cfo. To give me, king of his six billion, and the number only came to five billion on the core. Of one single day. When I was interviewing him, he too in the morning he was worth three to four billion and then in the afternoon he came back and cities with one point: seven billion donald trump

sued, tam, o brien for five billion dollars after o Brien spoke questioned his wealth. Eventually, the law suit was dismissed, famously Donald trump refused to release his tax records. Unlike all recent major candidates for president, the new york times carried out an investigation and claim that for many years, despite his large business holdings, he paid little or no tax, Donald trump dismissed it as fake news. Donald trump is often portrayed simply as a fabulous does a liar.

as someone who makes things up as he goes along, but the true picture is much more nuanced. Mark fisher of the washington post also spent hours interviewing donald trump shortly before he became president for his book trump revealed. He is deeply ignorant, he doesn't read, and so his window onto the world is really mostly television along with a lot of gossip and the people he talks to on the phone, so you're dealing with someone who is information poor and that has every bit as much impact on him as his deep belief that people will believe

most anything use, any he's very flexible he's, not ideological he's paying attention. What's goin on casey mulligan as a professor of economics of the university of chicago, he was often in the white house with the president's in twenty eightys. As chief economist for the council of economic advisers, and I was our job to process. The economic data is, there's a favorite subjective his, so he look at it. Costly absorbed it well. I I know this because then I would see him on tv a day later, a month later, a year later, talking about the very things that we presented to him and talking about it pretty much exact

the way we told him, but when we're in the room, he also was telling us what what to do, in particular from a communications perspective and each piece of analysis a chart. He would say you know this is something that needs to go. The new york times or you you guys, are not getting enough attention for this. Other result. You need to send it to Senator cruz's office. Oh hey, wait! A second! I think Lou Dobbs from fox tv wants to see that, in fact, let's call him up right now and you guys to tell Lou what you just told me, and then we left the oval office being better communicators than what we were learning from. Maybe the best marketing man in the in the world It was back in two thousand and four. The Donald trump became a tv star as the host of the apprentice jennifer. This is really easy. You're fired

What the hell's missing with you, you're fired but that's life so deal with wes your firewalls from said he was paid more than two hundred mil. Dollars for hosting the show until twenty fifteen and that he made more with endorsements. The apprentice took him from being a well known east coast. Developer ten national television, stardom and the kind of name recognition. Most politician could only dream of his fame making possible his run for the white house. Increasingly, he and his loyal entourage saw him as an a less celebrity. Has his long serving butler tony cynical Sly, stallone. The actor came for lunch after lunch. Mr trump and I walked me mad to his car and the driveway analyses driving away. Mister trumps is what do you think the ball celebrities, I bring to this house timing. I said mister trump.

There's only one celebrity in this house. Turn around would be the right answer. I'm saying, as in the present question, we went from also at attention with his adoption of various conspiracy theories and this tendency to heaven Arms length relationship with facts. Tromp is connoisseur and a purveyor of conspiracy theory. He loves conspiracy. Hee Hee wields it like I tell jennifer merge share a professor of communication at texas. Aunt am university study, Donald trump speeches. She argues that, paradoxically, by saying things, others what now It enables trumped to seem like the ultimate reliable authority, so he can appear to be a truth. Teller, which is part of his rhetorical genius as far as I'm concerned, is that he claims to

a truth, teller, while he's telling all these lies years even before becoming president Donald trump took up the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the united states and therefore was in eligible. To be u s president's why destiny show his birth certificate is of little because I, after what everybody else ass to what I really believe, there's a birth certificate. Why look she smiling why Doesn't he show his birth certificate? Eventually, obama did obama did publishes birth certificate showing he was born in hawaii during the two thousand and eleven Whitehouse correspondence dinner with donald trump. Among guests. President Obama, jokes, no one is happier. No one is prouder to put this birth certificate, matter to west, to the donald and that's because they can find, could get back to focusing on the issues that matter. Why

We fake the moon, landing the what really happened in Roswell and where I began to back those close to the always thin skinned. Donald trump was sure it was obama's as jokes at his expense and in his presence that made donald trump, even more determined to run for president and to beat the establishment who had laughed at it's politics as revenge stanley, renshon says trump, had political views and had been testing the water for years before twenty. Sixteen, we decided to take a plunge in, and it's totally donald trump complexion at the very top at the presidency, cold. We donald trump. Our country needs a truly great leader I am officially running

the president of the united states and we are going to make our country great again, hyperbole. extreme exaggeration has always been part of the trump playbook on the cap. Pain trail. It wasn't long before he was again causing controversy and playing loose, but the facts they're bringing drugs debray crime there rapist and some I assume, are good people, but I speak. He was talking about illegal immigrants crossing over from mexico, his outspoken mess jazz, resonated well with a large section of the: u s, electorate as dead his promise to build a wall.

All along the border and bring manufacturing jobs banks. The united states have one of us he's not a politician, but I like what he stands for we're changing the system, our system change. I want them doing more for me and such is doing for themselves, it themselves rich and me struggling? How did president trump connects with one of the neglected groups of american voters, the rural working class kathy cramer as a politics, professor, at the university of wisconsin, whose book the politics of resentment explored the The tools of these votes as easy for an observer to say folks in rural america are voting against their interests, but there

sums that people define their interests in terms of policies targeted toward rural communities when many times what people are looking for is someone who may think understands their concerns? She says president trump conveys to people in these communities that he understands them that he understands that they are upset, whether its resentful or angry and is willing to fight for people like that. That he understands that they feel left behind or ignored, or that they are not getting their fair share and that that's wrong and that they do deserve more. He defeated Hillary Clinton, the democratic party candidate. He actually got few votes overall, but one the electoral

Knowledge by winning more states as to an assassin of his presidency. His supporters say it is a pity. whether you s rightly looks and words to focus on america's interests. By contrast, his critics consider him the worst president's in american history, a man who is gratuitously rude and offensive, who so division and hatred at home and who damaged, arguably the most precious thing about america, its reputation around the world. He himself says- he's a bad loser. Winning is easy. Losing is never easy now, for me, it's not marie brand

went as far as the liken donald trump to one of the most important figures in modern EU s: literature, J against state, a man whose life- and I'm symbolise the dying of the american dream at an earlier age of access and turmoil. Well, America loves the story. We love and up from the bootstraps story, is the godspeed he's a fitzgerald and character america forgives flamboyance oh he's kind of flamboyant sticking at the in the eye. The authority never saying that he was wrong. for showing remorse. This has an appeal in this country I am robots and The producer was John murphy. Thank you for listening. There will be more from the documentary podcast soon the doktor,

tree is just one of our bbc world service podcast. There are many others, too cheese from tonight. in arkansas there's another taking in her daughter and turning off the light, a business burning, the midnight oil and at home dinner date is playing a possibility and it's all happening. under one roof, how the power of a conversation like the one, John from integrity. Solutions had with first rise in bank about his vision for a sustainable makes to use building. Now it's not words its life. First, her bank. Let's find a way The first arising dot com, slash, jain, first horizon bank after. I see.