The Rise of Donald Trump

Hi everyone, welcome to Cold-Knowledge Blind Box. In the last episode we talked about the rise of the Trump family, and briefly covered the story of Trump's grandfather, and how Trump's father entered the real estate business and laid the foundation for Donald's upbringing.

This episode, we'll keep digging into Trump's growth story: how he went from a free-range rich kid to the man running the family business.

How a family moved from being a local powerhouse to one of the most prominent families in America.

Donald Trump was born in 1946 and was the second son in the family. His father, Fred Trump, had used his extensive connections to build large numbers of apartments and houses in Queens and Brooklyn, in neighborhoods that were, in quotation marks, "slums" of New York at the time.

In today's terms, Fred was a textbook landlord. That gave young Donald a carefree childhood. On top of that, his father had placed all his hopes for carrying on the family business on Donald's older brother, Fred Trump Jr., so Donald basically had few expectations placed on him. That's why he grew up with an inflated sense of superiority and confidence, and was quite unruly.

At the age of 13, his father sent him to the New York Military Academy. That was where Donald first learned how to deal with rules and how to obey them. Most importantly, it built his ability to handle challenges and difficulties. After graduating from military school, Donald was sent to the famous Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and after graduation he went back to work for his father's company.

A young, handsome vice president of the Trump Organization, he could already have been the lead in a domineering CEO short drama.

But he still wasn't his father's first choice of heir, and he urgently needed a battle to prove himself. By the 1970s, the Trump organization ran into a serious problem. Some of the affordable housing apartments his father had built were suspected by the authorities, who said that when reviewing tenant files, Donald had apparently treated people differently based on skin color and race. When tenants moved in, they were marked with a letter C, which stood for "color." Someone reported it, and the government sued. If they chose to pay a huge settlement to make the matter go away, the Trump organization would be branded with the label of racial discrimination, and no one would do business with them anymore. In the worst case, they could go bankrupt overnight.

Donald got scared, and he urgently sought help. That's when he came to 21 Club, a famous spot in New York, the playground every respectable person in the city wanted to visit. Holding a million dollars his father had put up, Donald finally got through the door of the club. And it was worth the trip: sitting there were the Kennedy family, the political dynasty; the Vanderbilt family, the richest family; and Newhouse, the publishing tycoon.

But Trump still had a long way to go to get close to these heavyweights. He was just a nobody and could only sit at the kids' table. Still, for a 25-year-old, Trump loved the atmosphere here. He told his date, "I'm going to become a billionaire. I have the genes and the conditions to become one."

While he sat there with nothing to do, Trump suddenly felt a strange gaze. It came from a private room far away, a stare like a wolf, a hawk, a beast, or a devil. Then a man named Russell came over and invited Donald to sit in the private room. Trump instinctively wanted to refuse, but when he heard that it was an old member's invitation, and out of the desire to get in with powerful people, Trump went over.

When he sat down, he realized the man in front of him was the person known as the most evil lawyer in America, Roy Cohn. He was born in 1927. Brilliant from childhood, he became a United States attorney at the age of 23. In a famous espionage case in 1950, he used a single piece of evidence to convict a married couple of spying, and they were sent to the electric chair to be executed.

By 1953, this 26-year-old "legal prodigy" had become the chief legal counsel to the sitting US senator Joseph McCarthy, and in effect was the chief architect of McCarthyism. He directed a series of Red Scare campaigns against progressives. Many innocent people had their futures destroyed by him, some even took their own lives, yet he never showed a hint of remorse.

Roy is now a well-known "white glove" in New York, specializing in helping powerful people deal with their troubles. After some small talk, Roy realized Donald was Fred's son, and he also knew the predicament the Trump organization was in. Roy suggested that they sue the government directly and refuse to admit any of the charges, no matter what. Donald suddenly felt he had seen hope and asked Roy if he could help with the lawsuit. Roy laughed out loud and brushed it off with a joke.

Life goes on. The Trump Village that had been sued by the government became a soft persimmon anyone could squeeze. Every tenant started making excuses not to pay rent, and Donald had no choice but to go door to door collecting it himself. But it was very hard, because everyone thought the Trump family was finished, and nobody took this second son seriously.

That night, back at home at the family dinner, Donald proposed his idea: to have his father hire Roy as their lawyer. But his father thought the man was just a lying lawyer who had been indicted by the federal government three times. Donald's older brother, who was a pilot, tried to smooth things over by saying their father shouldn't have such big prejudices against other people. That only made their father explode with rage. He shouted that his son was just a bus driver with wings, and one insult after another followed.

It turned out that his father had always placed great hopes on the eldest son to take over the business. The older brother was warm and generous, and a kind person who made everyone feel good, but in business that was fatal. The older brother ended up becoming an airline pilot. Their mother, Mary, saw the situation and rushed in to break up the fight, saying the home was not the place to talk business. Furious, the older brother dragged Donald to a bar and insisted on getting dead drunk. This bad habit of drinking would eventually lead to his death at the age of 42.

Donald held himself to strict standards. He never indulged himself, had clear goals, and refused to touch cigarettes, alcohol or illegal drugs.

Apart from the family lawsuit, Donald had his own dream: to buy the famous Commodore Hotel in New York, because it sat next to Grand Central Station, which saw tens of thousands of commuters, and it was in the most bustling part of Manhattan. But he lacked the money. He went to see a friend of his father's to try to persuade him to arrange financing, but the friend flatly refused, because whatever Fred wouldn't approve of, his friend wouldn't either. Besides, New York's crime rate was soaring, and no customers would come to such a messy place.

After Donald pleaded again and again, the friend finally revealed his cards: unless the Trump organization could resolve the lawsuit, nobody would want to work with them.

Well, now both problems had become one problem.

The only person Donald could think of now was Roy, the lawyer he had met once. After a long wait, Roy finally showed up, and Donald formally asked him to take on the case for the family. But Roy had lost interest and walked off to the restroom. For the first time in his life, Donald, who had never been turned down, felt cornered. He lowered his proud head and said that no matter what, he would beg Roy to help. "Please, Mr. Roy, only you can help me deal with these bullies."

The word "bullies" seemed to move Roy a little. The two of them sat down. In Roy's view, the government was short on money, and it had started coming up with ways to squeeze capitalists to raise funds. Who would ever bother with those so-called civil rights movements? And this was the 1970s, when America had only just ended the segregation of the 1960s.

So this matter could be made into something big or something small. The case wasn't about what laws your group had broken. It was about who the judge was. Once the two had talked, Donald also told Roy about his dream of buying back the Commodore Hotel, which was now old and frail, and turning it back into a New York landmark. This piqued Roy's interest, and he suddenly felt that Donald was someone who thought like him.

The next day, Donald came to Roy's apartment and, without asking, handed over the million dollars of startup money his father had given him. Donald also noticed that Roy had photos with all kinds of big names on the wall, and asked how he knew so many important people. Roy said, "The federal government has sued me three times, and every time I walked away unscathed. I'm a winner, and people only flatter winners."

Roy also shared his winning principles. The first was: attack, attack, and attack again.

Roy called the civil rights attorney the government had assigned to the case, and cursed at him while demanding that he drop the suit, or else he would countersue the government for 100 million dollars. The Justice Department heard about this and immediately called Roy, scolding him that they would sooner or later deal with him. But Roy flatly denied he had ever made that call.

The second principle was: never admit anything, deny everything. This was on full display at the trial court, where Roy seized on the fact that the other side had no conclusive evidence, stonewalled, and refused to admit anything. Roy told Donald that the key to this case wasn't the courtroom, but the person sitting in it: the head of the Justice Department's division, Walter. If you took care of him, the case would be withdrawn.

Roy saw that the Trump organization's unauthorized marking of letters on the apartments was something that could no longer be reversed. Donald panicked. Roy said, "You have to remember the third principle: no matter what they say about you, you must declare your own victory. Never admit defeat, and never give up."

Roy privately found Walter at the Justice Department and used evidence of his affair to blackmail him into dropping the case. Trump won, but it didn't look like a very honorable win. Roy then said earnestly to Donald, "Have you ever played baseball? On the field, what matters is whether the ball is in the right place. In real life, what matters is always people. Even in America, a country with three branches of government, it's still a country run by people. There is no morality here. Don't care what others think of you. Winning is all that matters."

This big win made every media outlet in New York take notice of Roy, and of Donald too. Roy thought this was a good opportunity to let Donald publicly speak about his dream of buying the Commodore Hotel in front of the media. "You don't need your father's permission. If you succeed, your father will definitely accept you." From that point on, Roy formally became Donald's steadfast friend and mentor, and Donald set out on the road that would take his commercial empire, and his fame, to new heights.

In the next episode of Cold-Knowledge Blind Box, we'll continue with the story of Trump's business empire, and how he came to reach the presidency.

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