Yeah I got to get back to my projects here. FR is we know very addicting.
Found one of the sources. It wasn’t as easy today as it was years ago. I used ‘Startpage.com’ as a search engine. Using Google to find anything on the early Trump seems impossible unless it’s filled with sniping writers that cast Trump as a monster of sorts.
It was the Gwen Ifil interview and there’s a partial transcript. It also has authors Gwenda Blair and Timothy O’Brien who wrote books on the Trump family which were also among my readings years ago. If you can get a copy of Blair’s book, you’ll have about all you need for background material related to Trump’s growing up with his father. O’Brien’s book is also good.
Here’s some quips:
“GWENDA BLAIR: Dad worked 24/7. If it was Sunday, you wouldn’t take that day off. You would put the kids in the car and go over to a construction site. You would look for unused nails, because why would you waste a nail? He was a very tough and demanding guy, said to have told his boys, be killers, win, very competitive. And that competitive streak came out double in Donald.”
Me: Gwenda is talking about Sundays AFTER Church. Trump’s mother Mary Anne always made the family attend church on Sundays without fail, no excuses.
Also author Michael D’Antonio:
“MICHAEL D’ANTONIO: You won’t find people at Penn who will say, well, I was Donald’s really good friend, I was in a fraternity with him, or we socialized.
He didn’t do any of those things. He studied. And then, come Friday, as soon as he could, he’d jump in his car and go back to Queens, where he worked with his dad. So, from the very start with Donald, it was about getting control of the family business, building it, growing it, and becoming the rich and famous and powerful person that he eventually became.”
This last quip from D’Antonio corroborated another source I remember but haven’t located yet that Donald was not allowed to party with his college buds on weekends because his Dad made him work and by work is meant physical construction and cleaning work, like cleaning or replacing toilets. Our President has done it all. No job is beneath him.
Another reason Donald did not party is because of what happened to his older brother Fred Jr.
“GWEN IFILL: But that same pressure didn’t sit well with Trump’s oldest brother, Freddy.
TIMOTHY O’BRIEN, Author, “Trump Nation”: Fred Jr. really couldn’t stand the pressure. He ended up not going into his father’s real estate business, wanted to become a pilot. He ended up an alcoholic, and he died of alcoholism.
GWEN IFILL: Trump cites Freddy’s experience as why he doesn’t drink.
DONALD TRUMP: I probably wouldn’t be here talking to you today if — if we didn’t — if I didn’t have my brother Fred, because he kept me off alcohol. Now, maybe, with my kind of a personality, I would be a serious alcoholic. I just don’t know. But I have never had a glass of alcohol in my life.”
I have the full transcript somewhere and will post it when I can find it.
A couple of other notes on Donald. He has passed his father’s work ethic onto his children, all of them. There are no slouches in that family. It’s just never allowed to exist. And being blue collar, identifying with blue collar Americans is the norm, not the exception. Even though the family may be surrounded by opulent gold-gilded cornices, chandeliers, Meyer-Gunther furniture, and so on, they know their roots are blue collar. Don Jr. operates an excavator and is proud of it. Eris is amazing, I’ve got to find the interview of Eric where he’s challenged about knowledge of construction. Eric has encyclopedic knowledge of structures and high-end finishing. I can see how Eric could take practically any dilapidated building and turn it into a 5-star establishment. You don’t get that level of expertise unless you work your butt off.
Well enough for now. I’ve got to get back to my own projects. If you find any sources, please also post them here because as you know the search engine algorithms are now designed to hide anything positive about Trump and the Trump family.