Donald Trump is undoubtedly one of the most polarizing figures in recent American political
memory.
But no matter how you feel about this President, it's undeniable that the man has lived a grand
and colorful life with many different chapters.
Here are some things you may not know about Donald Trump.
"I know all these things, I'm not a baby, I know all these things."
Trump is one of the first celebrity-turned-presidents, in that before he took residence in the White
House, he was famous for being a man-about-town in New York City, where he based his real
estate tycoon operations.
Trump also appeared in over a dozen movies and TV shows.
Nearly every one of them marked a cameo appearance as "Himself."
While other stars like Paris Hilton would later appear in movies as a way to boost the
film's potential popularity, Trump wasn't cast from a marketing standpoint.
According to Matt Damon, a lot of those parts came at the property-owning future president's
behest.
Damon told The Hollywood Reporter what he learned on the set of Scent of a Woman, explaining,
"The deal was that if you wanted to shoot in one of his buildings, you had to write
him a part.
Donald Trump walks in, [...] you had to call him by name - and then he exits.
You waste a little time so that you can get the permit, and then you can cut the scene
out."
Or, as Trump's filmography proved, sometimes keep it in.
Fast food is Trump's cuisine of choice when entertaining championship-winning sports teams
at the White House.
"I think we're going to serve some McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger King with some pizza.
I really mean it."
According to aides in Let Trump Be Trump, the president's standing McDonald's order
consists of two Big Macs, two Fillet-o-Fish sandwiches, and a shake.
Why does Trump love Mickey D's so much?
Apparently, it's all based on fear.
Michael Wolff wrote in Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,
"He had a longtime fear of being poisoned, one reason why he liked to eat at McDonald's
- nobody knew he was coming and the food was safely premade."
This all plays into how Trump is, as he told CNN in 2016, apparently "a very clean person."
In an interview on The Howard Stern Show, Trump told the shock jock that he washes his
hands as much he can each day.
A crew member from The Apprentice also told Slate,
"[Trump is] not good with people touching him, he's very germophobic.
We were instructed never to touch him - he wouldn't shake hands."
GOP primary rival Jeb Bush used that last item as an attack, saying on his website,
"Would you rather support a candidate who strives to shake every hand everywhere [or
someone] who is a germophobe when it comes to shaking hands?"
Trump isn't without vice, and he'd likely admit to as much.
His love of fast food is well documented.
"Many, many french fries."
And he reportedly watches as much TV as he can fit into his busy schedule.
But there's one big indulgence in which the president apparently doesn't take part - and
that's alcohol.
While in his twenties, Trump's older brother, airline pilot Fred Trump, developed a severe
lifelong drinking problem.
Complications from the disease directly led to the elder Trump's death in 1981 at the
age of 43.
Donald Trump told The New York Times about seeing his brother make bad choices that worsened
his condition, saying,
"I watched him, and I learned from him."
As a result of his brother's example, President Trump has claimed that he's never touched
a drop of booze in his life.
While declaring a national health emergency over the ongoing opioid crisis in 2017, Trump
recalled Fred, calling his brother a, quote, "great guy [with the] best personality," according
to Politico.
"Much better person than me, I guess, you know, I mean in a lot of ways…"
"Why do you say that?"
"Well he just had a tremendous heart."
He also made note of Freddy's addiction issues, saying,
"And to this day I've never had a drink, and I have no longing for it.
I have no interest in it."
In 2011, Trump joined the ranks of Charlie Sheen and David Hasselhoff when he became
the subject of a Comedy Central Roast.
At the time, Trump was a big reality TV star known for his stint as the host of NBC's The
Apprentice, which aired to high ratings and critical acclaim.
But after Trump went into politics and secured the Republican nomination for president in
2016, the behind-the-Roast stories started to emerge.
According to HuffPost, Trump was scripted to come out on stage at the beginning of the
show in a golden golf cart, surrounded by several model-type women, then hand his coat
to one of them.
During the dress rehearsal, Trump reportedly asked the stage manager for a different coat-handler,
because the first woman, according to Trump, "was not pretty enough."
To ensure that the ribbing comes somewhat from a good place, a roast is generally populated
with friends of the subject.
Sadly, producers had a hard time getting any of Trump's famous friends to commit.
WWE boss Vince McMahon, Regis Philbin, Mike Tyson, and Tom Brady all turned it down.
"NO."
Trump knew what he was getting into when he agreed to be roasted, and was game for all
kinds of savage mockery.
Still, as a courtesy, producers ask the subject if any topics are out of bounds.
Trump had two: roasters couldn't suggest that he isn't as wealthy as he's publicly claimed,
or make fun of his history of bankruptcies.
One of the longest-serving members of the Trump Organization, apart from Trump's adult
children, is a spokesman named John Barron.
When a member of the media needed to speak with Trump in the '80s, they'd more often
than not get Barron on the phone instead, according to The Washington Post.
Barron was a master spin doctor, always ready with a clever and straightforward quote when
Trump faced criticism for controversial actions and decisions.
For example, reporters from major news media outlets quoted Barron after a plan to build
Trump Castle crumbled, and during Trump's failed United States Football League business
deals.
Trump relied on Barron from 1980 to 1990, when the spokesman stopped responding to reporters.
Was he fired?
No - he never actually existed.
In 1990, Trump had to testify in a lawsuit, and the subject of John Barron came up.
While under oath, Trump said,
"I believe on occasion I used that name."
In other words, Trump admittedly acted as his own spokesman while using a fake name.
What prompts someone to run for president?
If they're already a politician, then a promotion to the White House can advance their political
agenda.
Donald Trump is a different case, however, because he wasn't a politician at the dawn
of his 2016 presidential campaign - he'd never held elected office before.
In the mid-2010s, Trump was a celebrity real estate tycoon and the host of NBC's The Apprentice.
Also on the NBC schedule at the time was singing competition The Voice, anchored by celebrity
vocal coaches like singer Gwen Stefani.
Around 2015, Stefani was earning an estimated $384,000 per episode, according to USA Today,
which was reportedly a far bigger weekly wage than the network paid Trump for The Apprentice.
According to an interview with documentary filmmaker Michael Moore in The Hollywood Reporter,
that allegedly incensed Trump.
So, in 2015, he announced his candidacy for president at Trump Tower to supposedly get
attention which, he in turn, hoped would get NBC attention, and thus leverage them into
paying him more for The Apprentice.
Moore claimed,
"He'd been talking about running for president since 1998, but he didn't really want to be
president.
There's no penthouse in the White House.
He was trying to pit NBC against another network."
While Moore's "Gwen Stefani theory" was largely speculation, he was absolutely correct in
pointing out that the 2016 election was not the first time that Trump considered a run
for the White House.
According to The Hill, Trump changed his political party affiliation from the Republican Party
to the Reform Party in 1999.
He had to do that if he wanted to be that party's presidential candidate.
Led by frequent third-party candidate Ross Perot, the Libertarian-leaning organization
grew in influence in the '90s and looked to be viable in the 2000 presidential election.
Trump apparently thought he could win the White House for the Reform Party, and formed
a campaign exploratory committee, before making the talk show rounds.
He even won the California Reform Party primary, and then started to talk publicly about running
mates.
His short list apparently included Warren Beatty, Cybil Shepherd, and Oprah Winfrey.
Ultimately, Trump dropped out soon after his California win, because he thought the Reform
Party was crumbling from the inside and couldn't give him the support he needed.
Many recent American presidents seem to be closely associated with a sport: Barack Obama
is an avid basketball player, George W. Bush was an owner of the Texas Rangers, and Donald
Trump apparently came very close to playing professional baseball.
On a 2010 episode of the MTV series When I Was 17, in which famous people fondly recalled
their teen years, Trump revealed his athletic side.
"I was captain of the baseball team.
I was supposed to be a professional baseball player.
Fortunately I decided to go into real estate instead."
A teacher at Trump's alma mater, the New York Military Institute, even told Rolling Stone
that the Philadelphia Phillies had scouted him, saying,
"He was good-hit and good-field.
We had scouts from the Phillies to watch him, but he wanted to go to college and make real
money."
The teacher told the Daily Mail that scouts from West Point also sought out, to no avail,
Trump's services at first base.
In 1986, reporters Graydon Carter and Kurt Andersen founded Spy, a satirical comedy magazine
that spoke truth to power in government and commerce through savage mockery.
As the magazine was based in New York City, Spy focused on the colorful figures of that
city - making Donald Trump, a local real estate baron with a flair for self-promotion and
tendency to put his name on the buildings he developed, a frequent and obvious target.
Spy didn't just comment on his business dealings - they also mocked his appearance, frequently
calling Trump a "short-fingered vulgarian."
According to a 2016 NPR interview with Carter and Andersen, Trump reportedly threatened
to sue on more than one occasion, and Spy would then dutifully publish Trump's angry
letters.
On another occasion, the magazine delivered checks to big-time New Yorkers, planning to
make fun of whoever cashed them - because the checks were ridiculously small.
Supposedly, Trump deposited the checks.
Carter claimed,
"He cashed the 64-cent and the 32-cent check.
Then we sent out 16-cent checks to people, the people who'd signed the 32-cent check.
And only two people cashed the 16-cent check, [a Saudi Arabian businessman] and Donald Trump."
Sure, Trump is rich, but exactly how much money does he have?
The short answer: A lot.
The long answer: It's complicated.
Since he hasn't made his tax records - an accurate reporting of his income - public,
all the media can do is estimate.
In 2019, Forbes calculated Trump's net worth to be in the area of $3.1 billion.
Of that, $1.5 billion comes from pricey New York City real estate holdings, and $590 million
from golf properties.
That's obviously a lot of money, but a figure that differs significantly from the $10 billion
Trump said he had in the bank back in 2016.
Whether Trump has got $3 billion or $10 billion at his disposal, it's enough to keep funding
the lavish lifestyle to which he's become accustomed.
In 1989, "The Donald" dropped about $30 million on a 282-foot yacht he re-christened the "Trump
Princess."
Ironically, the future president didn't even like boats, and told Boat International,
"I'm not into them.
I've been on friends' boats before and couldn't get off fast enough."
And years before he won the right to fly on the real Air Force One, Trump purchased a
luxurious private jet he called "Trump Force One."
According to The New York Times, it featured 43 seats, all of them outfitted with 24-karat
gold, along with a dining room, multiple bedrooms, and several huge TVs.
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