Updated July 25, 2016 Corruption & Self-Dealing
Major Abuse of Power
The Art of the Deal: Tony Schwartz's Public Repudiation of Ghostwritten Book
Tony Schwartz spent 18 months with Trump to research and write The Art of the Deal. By his account, Trump's attention span was limited, he rarely focused on any topic for more than a few minutes, and most of what appeared in the book was invented or shaped by Schwartz from fragments of Trump's statements. The book created the public image of Trump as a brilliant real estate dealmaker — an image Trump leveraged throughout his political career as evidence of his fitness for office. Schwartz's 2016 interviews in The New Yorker and subsequent public statements described the book as a fabrication of Trump's public identity and said he feared Trump becoming president.