President Donald J. Trump | The Art of the Comeback (1992 Interview With Charlie Rose) | Is This the Year for Your Big Comeback? Join Eric Trump At Clay Clark’s Sept 25-26 ThrivetimeShow.com Business Conference (8 Tix Remain)

Audio Transcription

Transcribed with Cockatoo

(Speaker 4)
Welcome to our broadcast. Tonight, we spend the hour with a man who has already left his own unique mark on the face and history of New York City. If Donald Trump is not in the news for a high -stakes deal or a controversial new development, he may be in the gossip columns with his latest relationship. But less than two years ago, the news was that the Trump empire was in trouble, and some were quick to announce that the king had lost his crown. Donald Trump, some say, is out to prove them wrong and is currently writing his third book, which is The Art of the Comeback. And that’s what we want to start with.

(Speaker 4)
Donald Trump is here, and I’m pleased to have him.

(Speaker 23)
Welcome.

(Speaker 1)
Hi, Charlie.

(Speaker 4)
Nice to have you here.

(Speaker 45)
It’s been a long time.

(Speaker 4)
It has. We’re in New Orleans, back during the Republican convention, in a little room talking about, actually talking about the challenge of the Japanese at that time.

(Speaker 11)
Exactly right. Exactly right.

(Speaker 4)
Now, here is Trump, the art of the deal. And this is Trump surviving at the top. And here is the casino journal saying, gaming’s greatest comeback. Guess what? Casino player, the comeback kid. Donald Trump’s amazing turnaround.

(Speaker 4)
And here is New York Magazine out this week. Fighting back, Trump scrambles off the canvas. Bill Clinton, after the New Hampshire primary, went out front and had a press conference. And he said, even though he came in second, said, I’m the comeback kid. And look what happened to Bill Clinton. If you could translate that for you, Where would it be?

(Speaker 4)
Where would it take you to? What would be the equivalent of reaching the White House for you?

(Speaker 1)
Well, I think just doing what I’m doing, Charlie. You know, I’ve had a really great streak over the last year. A lot of people went down. The economy is in a horrible condition, just a deplorable condition. The politicians destroyed the economy in 1986 when they passed a tax law that just destroyed the real estate industry, which in turn destroyed the banks and the savings banks and savings and loans. And I really got very lucky in a way.

(Speaker 1)
I built a Taj Mahal which everyone said that’s going to be his downfall. The Taj Mahal is over a billion dollar building and it’s turned out to be one of the best deals I’ve ever made. It broke records for the last three months at one over 40 million dollars a year. No casino in history has won anywhere near that. All three of my casinos were rated four stars by the Mobile Travel Guide. And they’re the only casinos in the United States that are so rated.

(Speaker 1)
So it’s really been an incredible period of six or seven months for me. And it’s really been gratifying. Now they all want to do the comeback stories and everything else. And I think I probably care less about that than I would have maybe three or four years ago. But it’s been a pretty good experience for me.

(Speaker 4)
Then how are you different than you were three or four years ago?

(Speaker 1)
Well, I used to say, and in fact, I think I said in my first book that, and maybe this was foolish, but I really meant it, that someday I’d like to maybe lose everything for a period of time to see who’s loyal and who’s not loyal. And I frankly, I found out a lot of things.

(Speaker 4)
Did you find out who’s loyal or not loyal?

(Speaker 1)
And you can’t guess it. You can’t predict it. You think certain people would be loyal no matter what. And it turns out that they’re not. And you just can’t predict it. It’s very difficult.

(Speaker 4)
What hurt the most?

(Speaker 1)
Well, it’s a whole different scene, Charlie. I mean, we have a situation where you have everything going, everything going perfectly. And then one day you wake up and the world is coming to an end from the standpoint of the economy. But I just think that I’ve had a lot of luck. I’ve had a lot of friends. I’ve had a lot of good friends.

(Speaker 1)
And overall, I’ve done really well with it. And I’m very happy about it.

(Speaker 4)
I read all these numbers, and this is not investigative journalism here. We’re interested in what makes you tick, and we don’t have the resources or the manpower or the time doing a nightly show to do what somebody would do if they spent six months working on a piece about you.

(Speaker 1)
But you do have the brain.

(Speaker 4)
Help me with the numbers. Do you owe $5 billion?

(Speaker 1)
No, at one point I guess I owed pretty close to $5 billion, but I had assets far in excess of that. And they passed the 1986 tax law, which was just absolute stupidity by the politicians.

(Speaker 4)
Yeah, but a lot of people supported that. I mean, Norman and Baker and Bill Bradley and a lot of other people thought this was the tax reform act of all time.

(Speaker 1)
Yeah, I like Bill Bradley.

(Speaker 4)
too, did he not?

(Speaker 1)
I like Bill Bradley, and I like a lot of the people that you mentioned. And they didn’t really support, but Bill Bradley did very much. And I have to tell you, he destroyed the home building industry in the United States. He destroyed the savings and loans in the United States.

(Speaker 4)
The tax reform act of 86 did?

(Speaker 44)
Absolutely.

(Speaker 1)
What happened is incentive was taken out of the real estate industry. And the industries, such as savings and loans, they’re based on real estate. And when the values went down, and they plummeted, they absolutely plummeted. So the savings loans had billions of dollars in real estate that now all of a sudden is one half the billions of dollars in real estate.

(Speaker 4)
Yeah, but you know better than I do is that during that time, I mean, the savings and loan crisis came about because a lot of savings and loan lent a lot of money to developers that were bad loans and should not ever have been made. And then all of a sudden – Charlie, that’s true.

(Speaker 1)
That’s true. And I have to tell you, it’s 100 % true. But a lot of that was exacerbated. A lot of loans that could have been good loans were made into bad loans because of the change, because of the 1986 tax law change. And what that did is all of a sudden you had Resolution Trust and you’re paying billions and billions. In order to save $5 billion in taxes, we’re now paying trillions of dollars to save industries and save banks.

(Speaker 4)
And some people have come along and made a ton of money because of Resolution Trust.

(Speaker 1)
And some people made a lot of money.

(Speaker 4)
I see why Ron Perlman the other day made a billion dollars or something.

(Speaker 1)
Well, I don’t know what he made, but I frankly, he’s a good man. I hope he did make a lot of money, but it’s the government’s fault. The government passed a very stupid law. They have to put the incentive back into real estate. I think they’re doing it. I think they’re going to do it.

(Speaker 4)
It creates jobs. Here’s the other side. It is that people with great Entrepreneurial gifts like you it’s get yourself extended too far too much debt and too much extension and then when as it happened in in America there is a business cycle and when the economy goes up and goes down if you get yourself extended too far and you’ve got a huge debt service all of a sudden push comes to shove and and you find yourself in a very very between a rock and a hard place and it’s that extending yourself too far, that causes so many people.

(Speaker 1)
to come to ruling. Well, I think you’re right. I mean, I think I’m not going to, you know, not take blame for that.

(Speaker 4)
I think everybody takes blame for that, because anybody that does anything, the only people that don’t get in trouble are the people who don’t do anything.

(Speaker 1)
Sure, that’s right. If you play it safe and no risk, then there’s no reward. I mean, when I do things, I built the Taj Mahal, they said a billion dollar building, how can it possibly, and now it’s turned out to be tremendously successful. It takes time.

(Speaker 4)
You’ve got to be able to get over the hump. Riverside South is going to be a tremendously successful job. Well, let’s stop at Riverside South, though. I mean, first of all, what did you, here is one of the arguments made about Riverside South, that you faced a huge opposition on the part of the Planning Commission, a lot of people who did not want to see a huge development over there. You turned it around, and most people give you the credit for turning it around.

(Speaker 22)
So you know, was it 9 -0?

(Speaker 1)
How many people on the Commission?

(Speaker 4)
I don’t remember. 12 -0 vote.

(Speaker 1)
12 -0 vote. How did you do it, and did you make so many concessions in doing it that it no longer is an economically viable project? Well, the only way you can talk about viability is what’s going to happen with the market. Today, nothing’s viable, okay? Today, nothing is viable. You could have the greatest piece of land in the best location in New York, and nothing’s viable.

(Speaker 1)
When I did the Grand Hyatt Hotel, I will tell you, the hotel market was in shambles. Everybody said, Donald, you’re crazy. And I was crazy. And I did it. And all of a sudden, I got it zoned.

(Speaker 4)
I started building it.

(Speaker 1)
And by the time it opened, it was a tremendous job. Yeah, but would it have been successful without the zoning and the abatements?

(Speaker 29)
No, it wouldn’t have.

(Speaker 4)
I mean, it wouldn’t have.

(Speaker 1)
But I got the zoning. Yeah, of course you did. Absolutely.

(Speaker 4)
And now what we’re doing is we’re asking for certain things in order to make Riverside Sales successful. We have tremendous popularity. Every civic association virtually in New York is supporting it.

(Speaker 1)
But they’re supporting it because of the concessions you made in terms of subway, in terms of housing. How much parks and all of that kind of thing. And so the question remains, can you deliver on it? Yeah, the bottom line is if the market comes back, you deliver. If the market doesn’t come back, you don’t deliver. Now maybe Clinton’s going to come up with a housing program where you’re getting subsidized housing or something, in which case you do it in a different way.

(Speaker 4)
We’re looking to get… zoning for a piece of land that’s unzoned, that’s employing no people, that’s sitting there rotting, that’s rat infested.

(Speaker 1)
And if I get the zoning, which I hope to be able to get, the city desperately needs the job. If the city turns around, and if the economy turns around, and if incentives are put back into real estate on a federal basis. If and if. No, no, there’s always ifs. But there’s been ifs in everything I ever did. When I did Trump Tower, in all fairness, people said I was totally crazy.

(Speaker 1)
It couldn’t possibly succeed. It was too big.

(Speaker 4)
It was too expensive.

(Speaker 1)
It was too everything. And it turned out to be probably the most successful condominium development ever in this country. And is it profitable? Trump Tower? Yeah. The most.

(Speaker 1)
I mean, it was the most successful development ever built in this country on a condominium basis. I will tell you, two years before I started construction, people thought I was totally crazy to do it. It really worked out to be fantastic.

(Speaker 4)
You can say the Taj Mahal. You can say Trump Plaza.

(Speaker 29)
I mean, so many of the jobs I do at the time I’m doing them are supposed to be not good.

(Speaker 4)
And they turn out to be tremendous investors.

(Speaker 1)
Who makes the decision as to when you go? Is that a decision made by you, or is that a decision made by the bankers? No, no, no. And are you going to parcel those projects off? I’ll tell you what. The city is lucky to have the bankers that I have on my job, because they’ve invested a lot.

(Speaker 1)
They have confidence in me. They have confidence in the city. And frankly, they’re very lucky, because otherwise it could be a war. It could be a this.

(Speaker 4)
It could be a that.

(Speaker 1)
And that would be bad for everybody. I mean, I have some really great banks on this particular site. And they’ve gone with me, and they’ve they believe in me and and you know and I’ll tell you what it’s going to be it’s I think ultimately the decision is going to be right and it’s going to be a great success.

(Speaker 4)
You know what they say when you owe as much money as you did they become your partners. But that’s really a false statement because Reichman owed a lot more money than me and nobody’s partners with Reichman you know.

(Speaker 1)
And he went bankrupt. Reichman’s in deep trouble. Are they in bankruptcy? I want to be fair to them. They are in bankruptcy and frankly they’re in you know just very deep trouble.

(Speaker 24)
The banks my banks have had a great confidence in me.

(Speaker 4)
They know I’m good.

(Speaker 13)
They know I do it the best and they always

(Speaker 4)
know that I’m honest. And you need those.

(Speaker 1)
But did they have a choice? Oh, absolutely. They had a lot of money. They would have had. Were the assets enough there to get their loan back?

(Speaker 4)
I’m not saying I would have been easy had the other route gone.

(Speaker 1)
But I will tell you this. I will tell you this. They absolutely had a choice.

(Speaker 4)
And they could have gone a different route.

(Speaker 1)
And what’s the route they could have gone? Oh, it could have been a contentious route. Rather than working and working with me, et cetera, et cetera, it could have been a contentious route. And that would have been bad for me, would have been bad for them, would have been bad for the city. They could have put you up against the wall and said, you owe us this money, you can’t pay it back, we call the tune. They could have done that.

(Speaker 1)
And I think if they did that, it would have been bad for everybody, including them. And I think they understood that. But more importantly, see, I found out – Bad for them because they would have lost money. Very much, I think so. I think so. I found out a couple of things about banks.

(Speaker 1)
First of all, I find the banks to be very, very underrated in terms of the intelligence level, the whole thing. I have worked with the banks now very closely for a period of two years and these guys have done a fantastic job at least as far as my stuff is concerned. I’ve done I’ve done great for them and they’ve done great for me. And my thing is back.

(Speaker 4)
I mean I believe that in six months in 12 months I may be stronger than I was two years ago. two years ago or three years ago.

(Speaker 1)
I think I will be stronger than I was two or three years ago. I would like to see an uptick in the market. I think you’re going to have an uptick in the market. Why do you think you’ll be stronger? I mean, now that you clearly have given up equity.

(Speaker 4)
Very little equity.

(Speaker 43)
What have I given up?

(Speaker 1)
You know, the story is that I gave up equity.

(Speaker 4)
What have I given up?

(Speaker 14)
I sold the shuttle for a lot of money.

(Speaker 43)
But, well, was that a, you made more money than, you sold it for more money than you paid for or not?

(Speaker 1)
No, no, no. I’ll tell you what. You sold it for a lot of money but didn’t sell, but sold it for less than you paid for.

(Speaker 4)
It’s not a positive, is it?

(Speaker 1)
No, no, no. I didn’t reduce, not for less. I reduced my debt by hundreds of millions of dollars by the sale of the shuttle. And it worked out good. But you sold it for less than you paid for. No, I didn’t.

(Speaker 1)
You didn’t. I actually sold it probably for more than I paid for it. But it’s a very complex formula.

(Speaker 39)
If you sit down with a pencil and paper, we can maybe figure it out someday in five years.

(Speaker 4)
because it’s a long -term deal.

(Speaker 1)
We don’t want to bore everybody with it. But I sold the shuttle. I got rid of a tremendous amount of debt.

(Speaker 4)
I got rid of a lot of personal guarantees. The Taj Mahal, I have… Personal guarantees are unsecured loans from friends or what?

(Speaker 1)
No, personal guarantees being personal guarantees to banks where I personally guarantee a piece of a loan. Basically, if you take the Atlantic City properties, I have up to 80 % of the Taj Mahal. It’s the things making a fortune.

(Speaker 42)
Well, is it making a fortune?

(Speaker 4)
Stay with me and ask this question. Is it making a fortune or is it generating a fortune in revenue, but it has a fortune plus in expenses?

(Speaker 1)
No, it has a big fortune in expenses. I mean, it’s run first class. It’s a four -star hotel. Okay, but that’s the point then. How much of this in the end is net -net cash flow? How much is it simply that a lot of money is flowing in, but also out the other door is a lot of money going the other way to pay for it?

(Speaker 1)
I mean, I’ll give you an example. We’ll have probably $80 million in interest. I think the Taj could have a cash flow of maybe $30 to $40 million after debt. That’s some cash flow. Now, that’s a great cash flow. Now, what do I do with it?

(Speaker 4)
I do with the West Side Yards, I do the Riverside South, I do other things. But the Taj Mahals turned out very successfully.

(Speaker 1)
Trump Plaza, I own 100 % of Trump Plaza.

(Speaker 41)
You know, there’s this misnomer that I sold, I this, I that.

(Speaker 1)
I sold very little. I mean, when you think of it, I sold very little. But why didn’t your friend Greenberg from Bear Stearns say he used to own 100 % of assets that were worth nothing. Now he owns 50 % of things that are making a lot of money. Well, what happened in Atlantic City… That’s a difference.

(Speaker 1)
Well, there is a difference.

(Speaker 4)
And I own 50 % of the castle.

(Speaker 1)
Right.

(Speaker 4)
But when I say I own 50%, I’m also paying much less interest because I sold 50 % to bondholders.

(Speaker 1)
And in return for that, I got a reduction in debt, a reduction in this, and a reduction in interest. So it’s making a lot more money. In Trump Plaza’s case in Atlantic City, I own 100 % of it.

(Speaker 4)
And that is turning out to be fantastic. I can take your word on all of this. By the way, Charlie, I have to tell you, because of the fact, and the big difference is, and that’s what you see in all the casino things, because of the fact that revenue is a winner. They want to see you as a winner, because if you’re a winner, it means that they’re a winner.

(Speaker 36)
Well, they don’t want to see me as a winner, actually.

(Speaker 1)
because I have to tell you, when things started going bad, I was on the cover, but instead of my hands being up, I had my chin down, okay?

(Speaker 13)
So nobody wants to see me be a winner.

(Speaker 4)
Let me just stay with that image for a second. Was it embarrassing for you?

(Speaker 27)
You know, they say about you, they took his toys away.

(Speaker 1)
They took his yacht away.

(Speaker 4)
They took his… Nobody took it away. I sold…

(Speaker 1)
Yeah, but I mean, did the banks put you on an allowance or not?

(Speaker 4)
I mean, help us understand how bad it got for you and whether you were embarrassed and whether you said…

(Speaker 1)
Wow. Well, when you say embarrassed, I didn’t love waking up in the morning and walking down the street, you know what I mean, to be perfectly honest. Well, but help us understand that.

(Speaker 29)
I mean, you were a guy who was the big winner, and all of a sudden, the paper’s full of stories that’s saying, Trump in trouble.

(Speaker 4)
Trump, golden boy, no longer has Midas touch.

(Speaker 1)
Right. You know, I’ll tell you what the hardest part is, and the hardest thing about life to understand, in baseball, if you get 15 runs in the first inning, and you don’t get any more runs, you still have 15 runs at the end of the game. Well, it depends on what the other guy does. Well, no. But generally speaking, you’re going to win that game, OK? It’s as sad as it is to say, but you’re going to win that game.

(Speaker 1)
You get 15 runs, it’s pretty well over.

(Speaker 13)
Ask the Atlanta Braves.

(Speaker 4)
OK, I mean, we’ve seen some examples.

(Speaker 24)
But anyway, in life, I was 15 and 0.

(Speaker 40)
And then I had one very bad year.

(Speaker 1)
Now, I had a bad year. Maybe it was my fault because, hey, it was a lot of people’s fault. It was also the government’s fault. It was a lot of people’s fault. A lot of smart people. You’ll take some responsibility, though.

(Speaker 33)
I will.

(Speaker 4)
Absolutely.

(Speaker 1)
You’re not saying. I have to, because I’d be a fool if I didn’t. But I have to tell you, a lot of smart people are in real deep trouble right now, and I’m not. And a lot of people, really smart people, are dead. They’re gone. They’re buried.

(Speaker 1)
They’re over. They’re history.

(Speaker 4)
And so one more time, why are they dead, buried, gone, history, and you are alive, well, and gone?

(Speaker 1)
Before I explain that, before I explain that, I just want to say that you have 15 great years, you have one bad year, and people judge you by your last thing. You’re only as good as your last thing. You’re only as good as your last article or what you’ve done lately. And that’s it. I mean, you take a guy like Harry Helms. I mean, the man had 50 great years.

(Speaker 1)
Then, unfortunately, he married a woman. I mean, this was like a major mistake. Here we go again. He marries Leona. Poor Harry, I feel so sorry for you. Harry, get rid of her.

(Speaker 1)
Just leave her alone. Find a new woman if you can. But I’ll tell you what, he marries Leona. So now all of a sudden, he has a couple of bad years, to put it mildly bad years.

(Speaker 4)
I mean, we’re talking about major. They don’t say the score is 50 to 2. No, they don’t say the score is 50 to 2.

(Speaker 1)
As far as they’re concerned, Harry is like this major failure, and that’s a shame, because that’s not the way life should work.

(Speaker 4)
It should be 50 to 2, that’s a pretty good record.

(Speaker 1)
Well, I had 15 great, then I had the one bad year, and one and a half real bad years, where I had to fight. I mean, it was a struggle, it was a survival, it was surviving at the top. I wrote the book, it was surviving at the top. And it wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t pleasant. Did you ever think you’d lose? Did you ever lose confidence?

(Speaker 1)
Did you ever say, I may not get out of this? No. Not once? Not once.

(Speaker 4)
And the reason I didn’t say it is because I had to go back and do it myself. You see, I built what I built myself. And I did it by working long hours, and working hard, and working smart. More importantly than anything else is by using my own brain.

(Speaker 1)
And there was a point where I was making so much, so fast, and it was so easy that I almost got bored. And it’s true. And I write about this. I mean, I’m writing about this. It’s really been an experience. I should believe you here saying, in a way, this was good, because it gave me a chance to test myself.

(Speaker 1)
The adversity was good. It put me back. It made me leaner and hungrier again, because everything was at stake, and therefore, I had to pay attention. Well, I think I’ll look at it in the future as being good. And you know, when it was happening, I had no choice. I just had to do it.

(Speaker 1)
And I did it myself. And all of a sudden, I’ll give you an example. Riverside South. I’ve had Riverside South for five years. I’ve had the land for five years. I went through a succession of executives that were in charge of Riverside South.

(Speaker 1)
A year and a half ago, I took it over myself. And as you say, I got a 12 to nothing vote. And you were told that I sort of did it myself.

(Speaker 4)
I did do it myself. I mean, you can’t believe everything you read. But I did do it largely by myself with a group of people.

(Speaker 1)
of people.

(Speaker 4)
But I really spearheaded something that’s turned out to be, I think, going to be a great thing. I really went back to work. And I really did things myself. And I think that’s why I survived. And I think maybe, who knows?

(Speaker 1)
Let me point out a couple of other things here at this time. You lost during this period.

(Speaker 4)
three key executives who died in a helicopter crash and friends who were running, and then you went through some executives after that and finally put your lawyer in charge down there, right?

(Speaker 1)
Who’s done a great job. You had a divorce, that was you were the Fair to say people were laughing at you about this divorce. And we were amused in the tabloids. I was living in New York at the time, but we were amused by it. But at the same time, some people said, enough of this. I’m tired of reading about this kind of stuff.

(Speaker 1)
Oh, I would have loved to say enough. I mean, I couldn’t help it. But you were feeding the columnists, too. I wasn’t feeding. You had no conversation with all these people? You know, it wasn’t a feed.

(Speaker 1)
It was a frenzy, I have to tell you. And I wasn’t feeding anybody. They were feeding themselves. They were making up stories. I called up one of the top people in one of the New York tabloids. And I said, hey, look, this is ridiculous.

(Speaker 1)
This story didn’t happen. Don’t put it in. He said, I know it didn’t. It didn’t happen, but Donald was selling papers like crazy.

(Speaker 4)
And they knew it before the story was written. They put it in anyway. And I think the 28 days in a row, I mean, you know, we talk about Woody Allen was a big story.

(Speaker 1)
This, this thing just swamped everything. This swamped everything.

(Speaker 13)
This was the biggest of the big.

(Speaker 1)
It was crazy. It was out of control.

(Speaker 4)
And I guess it had all the elements of a soap opera.

(Speaker 1)
Did it bring any satisfaction to you that during this adversity, you were able to get out of the marriage at a time, perhaps you gave up a lot less money than you might’ve imagined you would do at another time. Well, yeah, I mean a lot of there were those people that say that I I did this purposely in order to get No, but there are those who said that you use that adversity as a time to say, you know It may not ever get any better. So you better you know, people were saying you better make your deal now. Yeah I was I was very happy to pay Ivana what I paid her I mean this was what I was supposed to pair and this is what I did pair because She if anything happened a year ago

(Speaker 4)
where I went down the tubes, where I really would have ended up with nothing, she and the children would always have been taken care of and that was very important to me. I mean, at the time, don’t forget, I was being sued for two billion dollars at one point.

(Speaker 24)
By her.

(Speaker 4)
By her. Right.

(Speaker 1)
And that was going to be a nasty contentious suit and frankly had I, had I not, had I not had a glitch I would probably not be on this program right now, I’d be at divorce court. If you hadn’t bottomed out and put some pressure on her and her attorney? It wasn’t a question of pressure. I mean, there was a point where she probably felt I wasn’t going to make it.

(Speaker 13)
I mean, there was a point where a lot of people felt I wasn’t going to make it except me.

(Speaker 39)
Isn’t he a handsome man?

(Speaker 1)
You like this, don’t you? No, I don’t really.

(Speaker 18)
But is it good for you to promote that because it says Donald is back and all of this stuff about scrambles off the canvas in a sense is good for business, so therefore you’re promoting that image.

(Speaker 35)
You want people to believe that you’re back.

(Speaker 1)
I mean, as an example, it’s late in the evening right now.

(Speaker 4)
It’s not that you’re a fantastic guy, and we did this down in New Orleans, but New Orleans was during the afternoon.

(Speaker 13)
It was really much more pleasant.

(Speaker 1)
Right now, it’s late in the evening, and here we are doing an interview. You know, right. It happens to be. What a heck of an interview it is. I hope we’re going to have a good time. I mean, I hope you get good ratings, too.

(Speaker 4)
I do, too.

(Speaker 38)
I mean, anything for you, Joe.

(Speaker 1)
Exactly.

(Speaker 4)
But I’ll tell you what, it happens to be.

(Speaker 1)
More important than nothing.

(Speaker 4)
Yeah, go ahead. That’s right.

(Speaker 1)
It happens to be great for business. I mean, the fact that it’s coming back.

(Speaker 4)
Now, it would be nice if it were the other way. If you have problems, wouldn’t it be nice if everyone. But apart from all that, come on. Ego. I have an ego. Of course you do.

(Speaker 4)
I’ve never met a successful person that doesn’t have an ego. Nor have I. Nor have I. People are driven by it.

(Speaker 1)
I mean, Mother Teresa has an ego. Absolutely.

(Speaker 4)
So you’re bigger than you would ever believe.

(Speaker 1)
Well, I’ve never had the pleasure. But nevertheless, I mean, part of it, you love the limelight. You love beyond the business and what it does and the whole sense of the Trump image. You like it.

(Speaker 11)
You like the fact that there’s security guys coming ahead of you and sweeping behind you.

(Speaker 4)
And there’s this adulation and women want to be with you.

(Speaker 37)
wherever you go, there are flash bulbs and all of this kind of thing.

(Speaker 1)
You like it. I don’t mind it. I don’t mind it. Don’t mind it or relish it? I’ll tell you what, I used to like it more. I still like it.

(Speaker 4)
I probably would miss it if it weren’t here. I probably would. No, I probably would.

(Speaker 1)
Because you’ve grown accustomed to it as part of your… Maybe. It’s been sort of wild, but I also think it’s great for business. I mean, it is great for the casino business.

(Speaker 4)
It’s great for the condominium business.

(Speaker 1)
Hey, they just came out with a report, the Corcoran report, that Trump apartments in New York sell for more on a square foot basis, which is really the, than any apartments in New York by far.

(Speaker 4)
It’s not even plus. And a lot of that, a lot of that is all of this nonsense.

(Speaker 1)
Let me talk about people you ought to say sorry to, if there might be. One is, and I’m talking, one, I raised this person first, that guy in Philadelphia, you know, who they say you got fired. You remember the guy who did the stock analysis? He did great. He came out, he did well, and now he’s my biggest champion. But you got him fired.

(Speaker 1)
I can’t help that his firm fired him. Did they fire him because of a call from you?

(Speaker 4)
I have no idea.

(Speaker 1)
Don’t you have any regret for that?

(Speaker 4)
One man may have lost a job because you leaned on his…

(Speaker 1)
Because he’s a tough guy. He’s a savvy guy.

(Speaker 4)
He’s come out great.

(Speaker 1)
He’s a stock analyst.

(Speaker 4)
And he’s now my biggest champion.

(Speaker 19)
He’s saying it’s the greatest comeback.

(Speaker 1)
In fact, he used the word brilliant.

(Speaker 4)
I hate to tell you this.

(Speaker 1)
What’s his name?

(Speaker 4)
Name is Marvin Ross.

(Speaker 1)
That’s right. He was a great critic of me.

(Speaker 4)
And now he’s saying that this was one of the most brilliant.

(Speaker 1)
So you did him a favor by getting him fired. I think in the in the long run, I think he’s probably doing better now.

(Speaker 4)
You did him a favor.

(Speaker 1)
That’s indirectly. I wasn’t looking to do him a favor, but I think indirectly. Don’t you regret that? I mean, you know, I don’t regret it. This guy loses job because that’s life. You can’t look back.

(Speaker 1)
I don’t like look back. No regrets that I mean, there’s no one that you’d say now.

(Speaker 3)
If I had it to do again, would I have done things differently?

(Speaker 4)
Yes.

(Speaker 1)
What would you have done differently? I probably instead of stopping with the sale of the St. Moritz where I sold and I made a lot of money I probably would have sold some other things. I think I would have treated people differently. I think that, you know, some of the people that were most loyal to me are people that I didn’t think would be. Some of the people that were least loyal to me are people that I think I would have treated them differently.

(Speaker 4)
I think I would have treated different groups differently.

(Speaker 36)
I would have wiped the floor with the guys that weren’t loyal, which I will now do, which is great.

(Speaker 1)
You know, I love getting even with people, but I will… Slow up.

(Speaker 4)
You love getting even with people.

(Speaker 1)
Oh, absolutely.

(Speaker 33)
You don’t believe in the eye for the eye?

(Speaker 4)
You do.

(Speaker 1)
I know you well enough. I think you do.

(Speaker 4)
But anyway.

(Speaker 1)
But tell me, you’re going to get even with some people. Yeah, I know. If given the opportunity. If given the opportunity, I will get even with some people that were disloyal to me. I mean, I had a group of people that were disloyal. But how do you define disloyal? They didn’t come to my aid.

(Speaker 1)
Well, what did they do? They turn their back on you? No, but they didn’t do small things that would have helped. They didn’t do larger things. Give me one example. Well, I had a one man who, frankly, was on the board of a company that I was selling.

(Speaker 1)
And it was a tremendous sale for me. It was a great sale. Would have been a very helpful sale. And it ended up going through. But one of the things is that I had to take – Is this a shuttle? No, this was a different company.

(Speaker 1)
It doesn’t matter which company. And it was a great thing for me. But one of the things is I had to clear the board. Now, I only put him on that board because of the fact I thought I was doing him a favor. He got some money by being a board member, et cetera, et cetera. He contributed nothing.

(Speaker 1)
When it came time, I have five board members, when it came time to removing the slate and getting all my people, everyone said, I’m leaving. Steve Ballenbach, Harvey Freeman, everyone left, except this one particular person said, I don’t want to leave. He told my people I don’t want to leave. Well, when I heard about it, I went nuts. And I blasted him. And all of a sudden, he left.

(Speaker 4)
But I consider that a great act of disloyalty.

(Speaker 1)
I put him on that board. Now, he did leave.

(Speaker 4)
I mean, he did leave. It’s a little like Andrew.

(Speaker 1)
I mean, Andrew ended up in favor of Riverside South. But for all I had done, I had never

(Speaker 4)
him for anything.

(Speaker 1)
This is a great job. This is a job that he should have been in favor.

(Speaker 4)
He had to do a poll in order to find out whether or not he was going to support it.

(Speaker 1)
Yeah, but how can you get even with Andy Stein? I mean, this guy’s a – It’s not a question of getting even. I can certainly be disappointed in certain people, and I was very disappointed. Yeah, but you’ve already said, an eye for an eye. I mean, he hits you, you’re going to hit him back. Well, I might.

(Speaker 4)
I might.

(Speaker 1)
We’ll see. But how could you hit him back?

(Speaker 4)
We’ll see. Hey, time will tell, I guess, right? Are you looking for the opportunity?

(Speaker 1)
No, I’m not looking. I’m just really so disappointed in him. I’m disappointed in other people. And I was disappointed in this one man that didn’t want to get off the board. He got off.

(Speaker 4)
He got off after being hit over the head with a cannon.

(Speaker 1)
What was the cannon? Cannon was me. And he ended up… What was the threat, though? I mean, did you blast him in the paper and that was enough? No, no, no.

(Speaker 1)
Or did you say… The threat was just sort of a… just a strong threat.

(Speaker 4)
I mean, he would have gone through a lot of hell if he didn’t get off. And then he gets off and he acts like he does me a favor.

(Speaker 5)
He gets off, okay?

(Speaker 35)
He got off maybe out of fear.

(Speaker 1)
You owe me, Donald, because I’m getting off the board.

(Speaker 4)
Yeah, and, you know, it was like one of the great jokes of the century. But it ended up that he got off and the deal went through. But that doesn’t mean I have to love this particular guy.

(Speaker 1)
It doesn’t mean I have to love them. I want somebody that’s loyal from the beginning, not somebody that’s loyal because they’re afraid or because they’re this or because of that. And I’ve had a lot of instances like that, but, but, and I think, you know, and again, I think the new book, and I don’t know why I’m promoting a book that’s not going to come out for three or four months. I mean, I don’t want to waste a lot of time, but I think that the most interesting aspect, that’s right, we’ll do it when you go national.

(Speaker 4)
That’s right.

(Speaker 1)
We’ll do that for the national, forget the local stuff. No, no, no, the local stuff’s important. Without the local stuff, there’s no national stuff. Right, you don’t do the second step. Exactly.

(Speaker 4)
But the truth is, I think the most interesting aspect of that book is the loyalty area, the loyalty chapters. You measure loyalty in terms of your own relationship with Roy Cohn.

(Speaker 1)
You feel like you stuck by Roy Cohn.

(Speaker 4)
You showed your stripes by doing that.

(Speaker 1)
Well, I don’t think I showed my stripes.

(Speaker 4)
You see, I’m so loyal to people.

(Speaker 1)
Maybe I’m loyal to a fault, but I’m so loyal to people. that when somebody slightly disloyal to me I look upon it as a great act of horror. Who are you going to support for mayor? Well I think David Dinkins I have to tell you has done a real good comeback you know you talk about comebacks David Dinkins has done one hell of a comeback in the last in the last six months and you saw what happened in Los Angeles and you saw what happened people really like the man I mean I’ve been with him and I’ve watched him and and he has really become a very popular guy and i think he’s going to be very hard to beat in a lot of ways now i have to tell you that a year and a half ago everybody nobody went to run against george bush it took a man from arkansas who was the only one you know virtually one of the few people who wanted to run because george bush was unbeatable there was no way you could beat this guy and he turned out to you know he just ran out of gas it looked like david dinkins could possibly win re -election a year ago and then you had lost a lot of other things and now he’s in a much better position he really is he’s done a great comeback you support him over giuliani well i’m not i’m not announcing who i’m supporting and i don’t think it’s even relevant i just think that dinkins has really done a great job in terms of coming back and i also think he’s a great human being i think he’s a very fine did he help you on the planning commission He helped me, but he was tough. He was strong. He was very community -oriented.

(Speaker 1)
He was very much for the people in that sense.

(Speaker 4)
But when he gave me his word that he would now support the job, he really lived up to that word. There was also a guy on the political scene this year named Ross Perot, a billionaire. Were you once a billionaire? I was, I don’t know, I was projected as being there a couple of times.

(Speaker 1)
You were worth a couple, because I saw that at least 900 million, but did you actually have a net worth of 2 billion?

(Speaker 23)
I guess they had me up to the highest of 2.

(Speaker 1)
What did you have yourself up to? I don’t know.

(Speaker 4)
I had myself up to maybe what I have right now.

(Speaker 34)
I don’t know.

(Speaker 1)
Nobody knows what I’m worth. What’s the Taj Mahal worth? What’s the West Side worth?

(Speaker 4)
I have no idea what I’m worth. What was it you used to say about the plaza?

(Speaker 1)
You said this is a trophy.

(Speaker 33)
Therefore, it’s a different place if it’s a trophy.

(Speaker 1)
If it’s the best and unique, then people pay a premium for the best and unique. But people don’t buy trophies so much anymore. It’s true. 1988 trophies were great. 1990, you don’t talk about trophies. Well, did you pay too much for that trophy?

(Speaker 1)
Probably? No, I’ll tell you what.

(Speaker 4)
When I bought the Plaza, I was offered a huge profit a year after.

(Speaker 1)
And brilliantly, I decided not to take that profit. And who sold it to you?

(Speaker 4)
Was it the Bassets on that? It was a consortium of people. The Bassets were involved? And I have to tell you, truthfully, I’m very happy with my purchase of the Plaza Hotel.

(Speaker 1)
I think it’s working out fantastically.

(Speaker 4)
I think it’s going to work out.

(Speaker 1)
You know, adversity is a very funny thing. When you have adversity, it’s like in golf. It’s like in sports. It’s a question of how many bad shots do you hit. Not so many good shots, but how many bad shots?

(Speaker 4)
In other words, minimize your bad shots. You really have to, it’s not a question of getting, because everybody’s going to get in trouble, it’s a question of how do you get out of trouble.

(Speaker 19)
I think the Plaza Hotel is going to turn out to be a great deal for me. I mean, it’s already turning out to be a great deal for me.

(Speaker 1)
But golf, that sporting metaphor may be correct, because in golf, if you were playing and you got to go over the water, to reach the green, sometimes you don’t make it over the water.

(Speaker 4)
And then it can put you into a bogey land.

(Speaker 32)
You’re not in bogey land, but are you back to par?

(Speaker 1)
You’re not even back to par, you’re at least in bogey land.

(Speaker 4)
Again, I tell you this, and I make this prediction, I think in six months I’ll be stronger than I was three or four years ago, whatever my… That’s a birdie, isn’t it? I believe what I did is I restructured things in the early 90s and the bad times, and now it’s turning out to be very good.

(Speaker 1)
I believe that I’ll be stronger than I was two years ago, but who knows?

(Speaker 4)
I mean, let’s see what happens.

(Speaker 1)
Let’s see what happens with the economy.

(Speaker 4)
Let’s see what happens with the world. Ross Perot had $3 billion, was willing to spend it and got something, I haven’t seen the last tally, maybe 17, 18 % of the vote, 19 % of the vote.

(Speaker 1)
There was a time in which you wanted to tease America that you might be want to the talk. Well, I certainly did generate talk. But you knew that your appearance would generate talk. No, I didn’t do it for that reason. Charlie, I didn’t do it for that reason and I had no idea how much talk would be generated and I had no intention of running for president and I wouldn’t have an intention of running for president.

(Speaker 1)
I will say this, Ross Perot, he made some monumental mistakes had he not dropped out of the election had he not make the gaffes about you know the watchdogs and the guard dogs and everybody coming at the house and you know three or four if he didn’t have three or four bad days and they were real bad days he could have conceivably won this crazy election you’ll get some political people who are smarter than you and i both about politics will say the same thing oh i believe it that he could have made it a very competitive race and possibly won but at the same time whatever it is that made him generate two billion dollars, which enabled him to do as well as he did in part, in part. He was very effective in the debates, and that had nothing to do with how much money he had. At the same time, maybe, you know, you have to take the good with the bad, and part of the personality makeup that made him two billion dollars also made him the way he is about sort of the paranoia about others. Well, the paranoia maybe created some of the money, but it’s not necessarily good. Or the drive that creates both. See, one of the problems with politics and politicians is that you really can’t have done very much wrong, and that means you can’t have done very much, because if you’re doing a lot, hey, I do a lot of things, and most of them turn out good, but some of them have to turn out bad, and it’s, you know, they’ll hit you with a little bad, and it makes it a little bit more difficult.

(Speaker 1)
Franklin Roosevelt, I think, once said, Arthur Schlesinger was here the other night, and I’m not sure he said this, but I think that FDR once said, I’m proud of all my enemies, I’ve earned them.

(Speaker 4)
What enemies are you proud of?

(Speaker 1)
Well, I’m proud of having a guy like Ed Koch as an enemy because I think he’s a major loser.

(Speaker 4)
He did a lousy job as mayor.

(Speaker 1)
He’s a promoter. He’s very much of a promoter.

(Speaker 4)
He did not do a good job as a mayor.

(Speaker 1)
He got very upset because after eight years of trying to build the Wollman Skating Rink, I was able to do it in four months for about one -tenth the money that they spent. And instead of thanking me, he took great umbrage to the fact that I was able to do this. And I just wanted to have my kids go ice skating in Central Park. I got tired of watching these people sitting on their… I’m not allowed to say S’s in this program, so of course I won’t say it.

(Speaker 4)
But I got tired of watching these people just sitting down and not working and not doing it right and having no planning and no leadership.

(Speaker 1)
So instead of thanking me and saying, Donald, that was a great job, he went around saying, well, I think we could have done it if we this, if we that. He was not… So Ed Koch, who else? I think it was just a great guy. What other enemy are you proud of? I’m not proud of enemies.

(Speaker 1)
I’d like to have, you know, I’m the kind of guy that has great friends and great enemies, and somehow, but I’m not proud of having enemies.

(Speaker 4)
Is your father still the seminal influence in your life?

(Speaker 1)
Well, I have a great father. I have a wonderful father. He’s somebody I love very much.

(Speaker 4)
I wouldn’t say he is, I’d say my mother and father maybe is a combination. Together?

(Speaker 31)
Yeah, together, because I have just truly…

(Speaker 1)
And what way did they influence you differently?

(Speaker 4)
Well, they’re very different people. My father’s a very business -oriented guy, but a very good man. I mean, if somebody came up to my father on the street and said, I need $100, I need $200, my father is the softest touch when it comes to people that really are in trouble. He’s really a very great humanitarian in that sense. But he’s a strong man. People would think of him as being cold, but he’s not cold at all. My mother is openly warm.

(Speaker 4)
I mean, she’s just a wonderful woman. Except when it comes to Mike Tyson.

(Speaker 1)
Except when it came to Mike Tyson. It took 40 years, and finally she came out and she said something. But she’s a fabulous woman. She made you like yourself when you were growing up. I mean, by her love, reinforced your sense of self.

(Speaker 17)
She really did.

(Speaker 4)
I mean, she’s some woman. Greenberg, again, in this New York Magazine article said about you, he said, if Donald gives you his word, it’s good as gold.

(Speaker 1)
However, he said, And he said that sometimes I have a bad memory.

(Speaker 4)
That that leaves you wide open to you.

(Speaker 1)
You know, it leaves you wide open to the fact that I have a photographic memory. Exactly. It raises this question.

(Speaker 4)
Can you trust what Donald really says? Because his memory may be short. Yeah. Now, I think he meant that jokingly.

(Speaker 1)
He’s a great friend and he’s a great gentleman. And I think he meant that. jokingly. I think, but perhaps he’s had some bad experiences. I really don’t know. What brings you the greatest satisfaction now?

(Speaker 4)
Is it conquering adversity, or is it something else?

(Speaker 1)
Well, I used to think just continued success, but I got bored by it. Yeah. Enough and enough is not enough. Enough, enough. And then I really think that right now I’m just really proud with the way I’ve handled things. I really think that I’ve handled things well from a business standpoint.

(Speaker 1)
And somebody who steps forward and says, you know, this is just Donald’s hype. He’s a giant promoter. He hasn’t come back. I mean, times have turned a little bit around. You know, he sold off some assets, but it’s not the great comeback that he believes it is. I mean, all they have to do is look at the numbers.

(Speaker 4)
I mean, you look at the numbers in the casino journals, and you look at the numbers, and you know, it’s been a tremendous comeback. And I’m not saying I’m as far back as I will be in six months. I mean, I’m really back, and I’m not in any trouble, and I’m doing well, and I’m making money. Money is a scorecard for me.

(Speaker 1)
You know, money is not as important as people would think it would be to a guy like me, but it is a scorecard. So what is the most important thing to a guy like you? I think the way I’ve survived, the quality in which I’ve lived under the survival mode, the image I’ve portrayed during the survival period. I mean, people haven’t seen me go into a corner and put my thumb in my mouth and say, I give up, I give up. I mean, this kid doesn’t give up. And some people did give up, I have to tell you, Charlie.

(Speaker 4)
And you’re not going to be doing interviews with them.

(Speaker 25)
But some people did give up.

(Speaker 9)
Many people gave up.

(Speaker 1)
And many tough, smart killers gave up.

(Speaker 4)
They just gave up.

(Speaker 3)
They said, I can’t do it anymore. So I think the way in which I survived was very important to me. Art of the Comeback, soon to be out. We’re going to be out in the beginning of 2019.

(Speaker 1)
Three or four months.

(Speaker 3)
You’re writing this alone? I’m doing this one alone because I really want to get my flavor. I’ve had two wonderful writers. My other books were both number one bestsellers. I’m doing this alone. I want to get my own flavor.

(Speaker 3)
It’s really become somewhat of a passion because I think people are going to learn a lot from it. It’s good to have you. Have a good time. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

(Speaker 3)
Donald Trump is back. Well, when Rich Dad poured out, I came out in 1997, and I said, your house is not an asset. And it drove people nuts. They just went crazy on me, because that’s a common belief.

(Speaker 29)
But when you can’t make your house payments, you find out it’s the biggest liability you’ve got, many of the times.

(Speaker 1)
It’s turned out to be very much more correct than you even thought when you look at what’s happened to home prices.

(Speaker 3)
Right. And Donald and I love real estate.

(Speaker 30)
I love real estate.

(Speaker 3)
I think it’s the best thing going better than sliced bread. But if you’re not smart with it it’s like a loaded gun. You know you can protect yourself and kill yourself with it. So real estate is to me the best vehicle. But you’ve got to be smart with it because we’re using debt. And debt is a two -edged sword out there.

(Speaker 3)
So you use debt. I use debt. But the more debt you use, actually, you have to be smarter. So you can use debt to get richer. It can also use debt to wipe you out. So that’s why I continue on saying we need financial education to just say to somebody, get out of debt.

(Speaker 3)
Well, that’s not accurate. You use debt, don’t you? Debt is a great thing. And to be big and to be very successful, Debt is a very useful weapon, but you have to be very careful. That’s correct. So the other thing with when people say, live below your means, you don’t like to live below your means, do you?

(Speaker 3)
No. And I think when you say to somebody, live below your means, you wipe their spirit out.

(Speaker 1)
It’s like saying somebody, if you want to lose weight, go on a starvation diet. It doesn’t make you healthier to starve yourself. So I would rather get financially educated as a result. read read your books because I want to. This is my greatest asset. I want to feed my brain so that I can expand my means without getting into excessive debt or where I start to lose because debt is a two way sword.

(Speaker 1)
But telling somebody to live below your means is almost inhumane. I never felt good doing it. I I wanted to strive to do better every day.

(Speaker 29)
I want to do better every day.

(Speaker 1)
I liked a good life. I tell the story of taxiing underneath your jet. I was in my jet, but it was a little Learjet. I look up, and there’s a 727, and I taxi under it.

(Speaker 3)
I said, holy mackerel. It’s big boys and their toys, but nonetheless, it inspired me. I said, OK, I’m in a Learjet now. It’s time to step up. And it doesn’t mean the jet will make me happier. What makes me happier is the wanting to get better, to get smarter, to do better. Well, I have a friend who was not successful at all, but was really up and coming.

(Speaker 3)
And he had a thing. He would only fly first class.

(Speaker 29)
I’m not saying do this, because for somebody, it won’t work.

(Speaker 3)
But he needed that mentally. He wanted to fly first class, because mentally, he wanted to think he was the best, and that’s it. And even though he didn’t have much money at the time, this is years ago, he would always fly. I used to criticize him.

(Speaker 1)
But it put him in a good state of mind, and he became a very, very successful guy.

(Speaker 14)
Very, very successful.

(Speaker 1)
And I’ve always remembered that. He would never fly coach. He would always fly first class, even though he didn’t have the means to fly. So look, it’s complicated. But whatever it takes to train that whatever it makes you feel better about yourself stronger more confident to want to do better. And I think really that’s the issue.

(Speaker 1)
I mean, we’re at the stage of our lives right now. We, you know, to ask for more is not really it. But to do better, to feel better about ourselves is still important. It is very important. So that’s why I don’t like saying, live below your means and scrimp and all that, because, you know, shopping is fun. Nice houses are fun.

(Speaker 3)
At the same time, you have to be very careful. Yes, but you have to be responsible about it. Correct. Like, you know, when you invited us up to your little duplex up here, whatever they call it, we walked up there and I’ve never seen a two -story entire floor home in New York City. And my wife Kim says, you know, she says, I never thought, I never really thought I’d live in a condo, but she says, Mr. Trump’s house will do. And it is spectacular, you know what I mean?

(Speaker 3)
And yet, I don’t need that, right? Yes, I don’t. I don’t need that.

(Speaker 1)
If I had one nice bedroom with a good television set and a nice bed, and you don’t really need that. But it was in a building I built, and it was there for the taking, so I figured I might as well do it. And what have I done? Instead of selling the equivalent of 12 or 13 units, I kept them. And by keeping them, I have them. I didn’t sell them.

(Speaker 1)
And that’s OK. And it’s become a very valuable place. So I didn’t need that. I don’t need it now. But there’s something nice about it.

(Speaker 3)
Right. And that’s my message is achieve it and then you can take it or leave it. But if you don’t achieve it then it’s always something away from you. So again that’s why I’d be redundant about this living below your means. I don’t think that makes your spirit happy. It kills your spirit.

(Speaker 3)
Also if you don’t have the financial education when somebody says your house is an asset or these mutual funds are good or the stock will go up and you don’t know the difference between a good investment and a bad investment because real estate can be a bad investment. Stocks can be a bad investment. If you don’t know good investment advice from bad investment advice, then you’re going to get taken. This world is not… kind, should we say? The hardest thing that I’ve witnessed over the last year is seeing people that were very hardworking and very conservative that invested in the stocks.

(Speaker 9)
And I’m not talking about high -flying stocks. I’m talking about very solid companies.

(Speaker 3)
And their net worth is 50 % of what it was a year ago. And they haven’t done anything wrong. Now they put their money in stocks. So I guess you could say that’s wrong. But it’s really not wrong, because historically, that’s been OK. So they went into conservative stocks.

(Speaker 3)
And a year later, they’re worth 50%, and all they’ve done is worked.

(Speaker 9)
And that’s the hardest thing I’ve seen. That’s tragedy. The thing that I want to say is this.

(Speaker 10)
You can invest in gold and lose money. You can invest in real estate and lose money.

(Speaker 3)
You can lose stocks and lose money. You can invest in oil and lose money. You can also make a lot of money in all those things.

(Speaker 9)
So really, the reason we get together is because of your financial intelligence, your financial IQ.

(Speaker 14)
make something valuable or not value.

(Speaker 5)
Like I said, you have to know a good investment from a bad investment, good advice from bad advice. But Clay Clark, man, he is one character. It’s a good word for character. Yeah, that is it. Good, driven, smart. And I’ve never met a guy who was so hyper all the time.

(Speaker 5)
He’s doing so much good. And then I met his mother, and she just says, She just lets him be Clay Clark. He’s endorsed by his mother and he’s doing magnificent work.

(Speaker 2)
So it was great meeting you out there and all the people that he surrounds himself with. Clay Clark starts his days at five o ‘clock in the morning. It’s incredible. Yeah. He’s a machine. He’s a machine.

(Speaker 2)
But his, you know, I could, I have problems with my company starting at nine o ‘clock. Yes. Hundreds of people showing up at 5 .00 AM in Tulsa, Oklahoma, man, he’s a leader of a leader. He’s fantastic. Yeah, man. No, he is.

(Speaker 2)
He is. My name is Kevin Thomas and the name of our company is MultiClean. We are a commercial janitorial service and we serve the entire state of Oklahoma. and Kansas and soon to be Arkansas. We have probably grown probably five times. We’ve added, I think when we first started with you, we had 60 to 65 employees and now we have a little over 300 employees.

(Speaker 28)
Before we got involved with Thrive Time, we didn’t really have any systems or processes in place.

(Speaker 2)
I’ve probably been to Oh, in six, seven years, I’ve probably been to 12 to 13 business conferences. And amazingly, each time I go, I learn something new. And I’m so excited to bring it back and, and show the team about marketing and how to implement. Okay, Aaron Antis, September 25th and 26th. Guess who’s coming back to Tulsa? I will give you a hint.

(Speaker 2)
His first name is Eric. And his last name is Trump. And his father is the 47th president of these United States. Yes, Eric Trump is joining us once again here, September 25th and 26th in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for the two day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Growth Workshop. But Eric Trump is bringing friends. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Alina Haba will be joining Eric Trump right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

(Speaker 2)
Amanda Grace will be in the place. Dr. Stella Emanuele. We’ll be here in T -Town in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

(Speaker 12)
Julie Green will be on the scene.

(Speaker 3)
Mel K will be here to say hey.

(Speaker 9)
Dave Scarlett from the HisGlory team will be here.

(Speaker 22)
It’s going to be a blasty blast right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

(Speaker 3)
Optimization sales training financial management and more get your tickets right now at Thrivetimeshow . com. Once again, it’s Thrivetimeshow . com. People don’t know this, but the Trump Organization has thousands of employees. There’s not 50 employees.

(Speaker 3)
The Trump Organization, again, most people don’t know this, but the Trump Organization has thousands of employees. And while Donald J. Trump was the 45th president of these United States, he needed a competent man to run and execute his business plans.

(Speaker 9)
So the man that runs the Trump Organization for Donald J. Trump as he was the 45th President of the United States and now the 47th President of the United States is Eric Trump. Eric Trump is here to talk about time management, promoting from within, marketing, branding, quality control, sales systems, workflow design, workflow mapping, how to build. I mean, everything that you see, the Trump hotels, the Trump golf courses, all their products, the man who manages Billions of dollars of real estate and thousands of employees is here to teach us how to do it.

(Speaker 3)
You are talking about one of the greatest brands on the planet from a business standpoint.

(Speaker 13)
I mean, who else has been able to create a brand like the Trump brand?

(Speaker 3)
I mean, look at it. And this is the man behind the business for the last pretty much since 2015. He’s been the man behind it.

(Speaker 27)
So you’re talking, we’re into nine going into 10 years of him running it.

(Speaker 9)
And we get to tap into that knowledge.

(Speaker 2)
That’s going to be amazing. Now think about this for a second. But Clay Clark, man, he is one character. It’s a good word for character. Yeah, that is it. Good, driven, smart.

(Speaker 2)
And I’ve never met a guy who was so hyper all the time. He’s doing so much good. And then I met his mother and she just says she just lets him be Clay Clark. I mean, so he’s endorsed by his mother. And he’s doing magnificent work. So it was great meeting you out there and all the people that he surrounds himself with.

(Speaker 2)
His client Clark starts his days at five o ‘clock in the morning. Oh, it’s incredible. Yeah, he’s he’s like, he’s he’s a machine. He’s a machine. But his you know, I could I have problems with my company starting at nine o ‘clock. Yes.

(Speaker 2)
Hundreds of people showing up at 5am in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Man, he’s a leader of a leader. He’s fantastic. Yeah, man.

(Speaker 26)
No, he is. The lineup continues to grow.

(Speaker 2)
And this is how we do our tickets here at the Thrive Time Show.

(Speaker 25)
If you want to get a VIP ticket, you can absolutely do it.

(Speaker 2)
It’s $500 for a VIP ticket. We’ve always done it that way. Now, if you want to take a general admission ticket, it’s $250 or whatever price you want to pay. And the reason why I do that and the reason why we do that is because we want to make our events affordable for everybody. I grew up without money. I totally understand what it’s like to be the tight spot.

(Speaker 2)
So if you want to attend, it’s $250 or whatever price you want to pay. That’s how I do it. And it’s $500 for a VIP ticket. Now, we only have limited seating here. The most people we’ve ever had in this building was for the Jim Brewer presentation. Jim Brewer came here.

(Speaker 2)
The legendary comedian Jim Brewer came to Tulsa.

(Speaker 19)
And we had 419 people that were here, 419 people.

(Speaker 2)
And I thought to myself, there’s no more room. I felt kind of bad that a couple people had VIP seats in the men’s restroom.

(Speaker 24)
No, I’m just kidding.

(Speaker 11)
So I thought, you know what?

(Speaker 23)
we should probably add on.

(Speaker 2)
So this guy’s like the greatest marketer you’ve ever seen, right? His entire life, Clay Clark, his entire life is marketing. So again, if you want to get tickets for this event, all you have to do is go to Thrivetimeshow . com. Go to Thrivetimeshow . com.

(Speaker 2)
When you go to Thrivetimeshow . com, you’ll go there, you’ll request a ticket. Boom.

(Speaker 17)
Or if you want to text me, if you want a little bit faster service, you say, I want you to call me right now.

(Speaker 2)
Just text my number. It’s my cell phone number. My personal cell phone number. We’ll keep that. private between you, between you, me, everybody. We’ll keep that private.

(Speaker 2)
And anybody, don’t share that with anybody except for everybody. That’s my private cell phone number. It’s 918 -851 -0102. 918 -851 -0102. I know we have a lot of Spanish -speaking people that attend these conferences. And so to be bilingually sensitive, my cell phone number is 918 -851 -0102.

(Speaker 2)
Zero two. That is not actually bilingual. That’s just saying Kwan for a one. It’s not the same thing. I think you’re attacking me. Now, let’s talk about this.

(Speaker 2)
Now, what kind of stuff will you learn at the Thrive Time Show workshop? So, Aaron, you’ve been to many of these over the past seven, eight years. So let’s talk about it. I’ll tee up the thing and then you tell me what you’re going to learn here, OK? OK. You’re going to learn marketing, marketing and branding.

(Speaker 2)
What are we going to learn about marketing and branding? Oh, yeah. We’re going to dive into, you know, so many people say, oh, you know, I got to get my brand known out there like the Trump brand. You want to get that brand. It’s like, how do I actually make people know what my business is and make it a household name? You’re going to learn some intricacies of how you can do that.

(Speaker 2)
You’re going to learn sales. So many people struggle to sell something. This just in, your business will go to hell if you can’t sell. So we’re going to teach you sales. We’re going to teach you search engine optimization, how to come up top in the search engine results. We’re going to teach you how to manage people.

(Speaker 2)
Aaron, you have managed, no exaggeration, hundreds of people throughout your career and thousands of contractors. And most people struggle with managing people. Why does everybody have to learn how to manage people? Well, because first of all, people are, you either have great people or you have people who suck.

(Speaker 22)
And so it can be a challenge, you know, learning how to work with a large group of people and get everybody pulling in the same direction can be a challenge.

(Speaker 2)
But if you have the right systems, you have the right processes, and you’re really good at selecting great ones. And we have a process we teach about how to find great people. When you start with the people who have a great attitude, they’re teachable. they’re driven, all of those things, then you can get those people all pulling in the same direction. So we’re going to teach you branding, marketing, sales, search engine optimization. We’re going to teach you accounting.

(Speaker 2)
We’re going to teach you personal finance, how to manage your finance.

(Speaker 21)
We’re going to teach you time management.

(Speaker 2)
How do you manage your time? How do you get more done during a typical day? How do you build an organization if you’re not organized? How do you do organization? How do you build an org chart? Everything that you need to know to start and grow a business will be taught during this two -day interactive business workshop.

(Speaker 2)
Now, let me tell you how the format is set up here. And again, folks, this is a two -day interactive 15.

(Speaker 20)
Think about this, folks.

(Speaker 2)
It’s two days.

(Speaker 3)
Each day, it starts at 7 AM, and it goes until 5 PM.

(Speaker 8)
So from 7 AM to 5 PM, two days. It’s a two -day interactive workshop. The way we do it is we do a 30 -minute teaching session, and then we break for 15 minutes for a question and answer session.

(Speaker 2)
So Aaron, what kind of great stuff stuff happens during that 15 minute question and answer session after every teaching session.

(Speaker 19)
I actually think it’s the best part about the workshops because here’s what happens.

(Speaker 2)
I’ve been to lots of these things over the years. years. I’ve paid many thousands of dollars to go to them and you go in there and they talk in vague generalities and they’re constantly upselling you for something trying to get you to buy this thing or that thing or this program or this membership. And you leave not getting your very specific questions answered about your business or your employees or what you’re doing on your marketing. And what’s awesome about this is we literally answer every single question that any person asks. And it’s very specific to what your business is.

(Speaker 2)
And what we do is we allow you as the attendee to write your questions on the whiteboard. And then we literally, as you mentioned, we answer every single question on the whiteboard. And then we take a 15 -minute break to stretch and to make it entertaining when you’re stretching. That’s a true story. When you get up and stretch, you’ll be greeted by mariachis. There’s going to probably be alpaca here, llamas, helicopter rides, a coffee bar, a snow cone.

(Speaker 2)
I mean, there’s just… You had a crocodile one time. That was pretty interesting. I should write that down.

(Speaker 18)
And I’m sorry for that one guy that we lost the crocodile.

(Speaker 2)
We duct taped its face. So that’s right. We duct tape a baby crocodile and duct tape.

(Speaker 17)
Yeah.

(Speaker 2)
Duct tape around the mouth. So it didn’t bite anybody.

(Speaker 7)
But it was really cool. That thing around. And I should I should do that. I should.

(Speaker 2)
We have a small petting zoo that will be assembled. It’s going to be great. And then you’re in the company of hundreds of entrepreneurs. So there’s not a lot of people in America today. In fact, there’s less than 10 million people today, according to U . S.

(Speaker 2)
debt clock that identifies being self -employed. So if you have a country with 350 million people, that means you have less than 3 % of our population that’s even self -employed.

(Speaker 12)
So you only have 3 out of every 100 people in America that are self -employed to begin with.

(Speaker 2)
And when Inc. Magazine reports that 96 % of businesses fail by default, by default, you have a 1 out of 1 ,000 chance of succeeding in the game of business. But yet, the average client that you and I work with, we can typically do better. No hyperbole. No exaggeration. I have thousands of testimonials to back this up.

(Speaker 2)
We have thousands of testimonials to back it up. But when you work with a home builder, when I work with a business owner, we can typically double the size of the company within 24 months. Yeah, double. And you say double.

(Speaker 14)
Yeah, there’s businesses that we have tripled.

(Speaker 2)
There’s businesses we’ve grown eight X. There’s so many examples you can see at Thrivetimeshow . com. But again, this is the most interactive best business workshop on the planet. This is objectively the highest rated and most reviewed business workshop on the planet. I was looking to learn how to take my business, like they’ve said today, from being very successful to being systematic. I’ve got a very successful practice in three different cities.

(Speaker 2)
I make good money. I just want to take it to the next level with systems and processes to where I can drive my cars more. and what kind of um growth have you and your great team had here over the past let’s say five six years the last five when i met you five years ago we were doing three million this year we’ll be we’ll do 24 million and you say clay i still i’m not gonna get a ticket unless you give me more okay fine we’re gonna serve you the same meal both days true story we have we cater in the food and because I keep it simple. I literally bring in the same food both days for lunch. It’s Ted Esconzito’s, an incredible Mexican restaurant. That’s going to happen.

(Speaker 2)
And Jill Donovan, our good friend, who is the founder of Rustic Cuff. She started that company in her home, and now she sells millions of dollars of apparel and products. That’s rusticcuff . com. And someone says, I want more.

(Speaker 16)
This is not enough.

(Speaker 6)
Give me more. OK. I’m not going to mention their names right now, because I’m working on it behind the scenes here. But we’ve got one guy who’s giving away verbal to be here. And this is a guy who’s one of the wealthiest people in Oklahoma.

(Speaker 15)
And nobody really knows who he is, because he’s built systems that are very utilitarian, that offer a lot of value.

(Speaker 2)
He’s made a lot of money in the, it’s the, It’s where you rent.

(Speaker 14)
It’s short.

(Speaker 2)
It’s where you’re renting storage spaces. He’s a storage space guy. He owns this. What do you call that? The rental, the storage space, storage units. This guy owns storage units.

(Speaker 13)
He owns railroad cars.

(Speaker 2)
He owns a lot of assets that make money on a daily basis. But they’re not like customer facing. Most people don’t know who owns the many storage facility or most people don’t know who owns the warehouse that’s passively making money. Most people don’t know who owns the railroad cars.

(Speaker 12)
But this This guy, he’s giving me a verbal that he will be here. And we just continue to add more and more success stories.

(Speaker 2)
So if you’re out there today and you want to change your life, you want to give yourself a incredible gift.

(Speaker 12)
You want a life changing experience. You want to learn how to start and grow a company.

(Speaker 2)
Go to Thrivetimeshow . com. Go there right now.

(Speaker 5)
Thrivetimeshow . com. Request a ticket for the two day interactive event. Hey, how’s it going? I’m Thomas Croson, owner and founder of Full Package Media in Dallas, Texas. I’ve been a coaching client with Clay Clark since the beginning of our business.

We started about a year ago, August of last year. I had no clients, no idea what we were doing, no clue really what was going on, and now we’ve grown to where we’ve got six photographers, we’ve got office space here, I have an admin sales person that works for us full time, developing an online system, and a lot of that growth we attribute to Clay helping us, and there’s so many things that No, I mean, his stuff is not revolutionary. It’s not this crazy walk on hot coals and all this stuff. It’s just real, real stuff. It’s going to be a blasty blast. There’s no other way.

Uh, Aaron, I could not be more excited about this event. I think it is incredible. And there’s somebody out there right now. You’re you’re watching and you’re like, but I already signed up for this incredible other program called smoke your way to thin. I think that’s going to change your life. I promise you this will be 10 times better than that.

It’s like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking. to the two -day interactive Thrive Time Show workshop right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I promise you it will be a life -changing experience. We can’t wait to see you right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. What kind of growth have you had since you and I’ve been working together over these past few years? 3 .45 million.

I got those stats before I got on here. So you’ve grown by 3 .45 million. Yeah. $3 ,450 ,000. Would that be like if you took the combined revenue and maybe doubled it? Or have we gone up by three?

Almost three, not quite.

Transcribed with Cockatoo