TV legend Selina Scott who knows private side of Donald Trump reveals all about new President’s mood swings
Man who is set to become the 45th elected leader of the United States of America 'has a stunted emotional growth when it comes to women'
DONALD J TRUMP. President of America. In the footsteps of Lincoln and Kennedy. The Kid from Queens. Wouldya believe it? I can hear him saying it now.
Like many successful businessmen, The Donald always said he knew how to make America Great again.
He told me this many times during the two weeks I spent with him filming a documentary for British television in 1995.
He had not given any broadcaster this kind of access before. I was introduced to his business associates in the penthouse suite at New York’s Trump Tower, where he greeted me as “the legendary Selina Scott, partner in our deal”, inviting me to fly in his helicopter above the Manhattan skyline, outlining his vision of the way his property empire reshaped the city.
He introduced me to his mother Mary, the daughter of a crofter from the Western Isles who he adored and revered, and bade me join him on many a glamorous social occasion.
In the hurly burly of this remarkable odyssey between the personal, the private and the professional, I believe I gained a deep insight into this extraordinary man.
I quickly realised he could switch between the charm of a George Clooney — “I like beautiful things which is why I like you, Selina” — to the naked, the venomous and the vindictive.
He could switch like a light from social chit-chat to corporate or political dialogue. “Look at Japan and China,” he would rage out of nowhere. “They’re laughing at us.
Look at Mexico and Michigan. They used to make cars in Michigan and you couldn’t drink the water in Mexico.
“Now they make cars in Mexico and you can’t drink the water in Michigan.
“To hell with that. If I was President we’d soon turn that around, and boy would I love to be in the White House. Then we’d see some changes.”
And now he has got the chance to make his boasts come true.
He’s got plenty of people knocking him, but he always did have. The Trump I got to know has a very clear philosophy. He divides the world into winners and losers.
If there’s something you want, go out and take it. Washington is about to find out.
I would love to be a fly on the wall of the Oval Office come January. I know what he will say when Russia and its expansionist President Putin is on the agenda. “We need a strategy, Mr President,” the generals will say to him.
“Yeah, I will tell you my strategy,” he will say, echoing Ronnie Reagan. “They lose, we win.”
Let me tell you a story. Trump had invited me on board his Boeing jet to fly to Mar-a-Lago — his Florida mansion — to attend a glittering party by the pool.
He had already shown me the white leather bed, the well-stocked bar, the on-board cinema and all his other toys when the conversation turned to a high-profile New York female journalist who he thought had stabbed him in the back.
“I’m going to get that b****. I am going to break her,” he said.
I said, “But Donald, it’s only an article, she is a journalist. What does it matter?”
“It does matter,” he replied. “It’s a question of honour. If someone comes after me they’ve gotta know I’m gonna turn on them and it’s gonna be them or me.” One person about to find that out is Barack Obama, who Trump hates and who has ridiculed him.
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Trump has pledged to reverse everything Obama has achieved — health care for the poor, gun reform, trade deals that he views as beneficial to everyone but America, the nuclear treaty with Iran and climate accord.
He says he will reverse Obama’s armistice for those immigrants already in the country.
I think he will put women in his cabinet to show he is not a misogynist. One of them will almost certainly be Sarah Palin, the flaky former Governor of Alaska.
My observation of Trump at close quarters is — despite some of the horrible things he has said about women, such as “I grab them by the p****. They’ll let you do anything when you are a star” — he has a stunted emotional growth which makes praise he receives from women important to him.
Is the world safe with his finger on the nuclear button? This is the question not just the West is asking but Vladimir Putin also.
Nato is weak. Many observers feel if Russia moves to occupy the Baltic States, Nato would not respond for fear of starting a war.
Would Trump’s tough guy mentality take over and would he do something stupid in order to show Putin just how tough he is?
It’s not just the world that waits with uncertainty but the Kremlin as well.
On his first day as president when he lays out what he wants done, he will be told: “This isn’t possible”, “That isn’t possible”. But Trump will be ready for them.
He has a notoriously short attention span. This may be of great help. He will be good at cutting through the diplomatic waffle and at making deals because that’s what he loves. And despite Theresa May being only tenth on his list of phone calls to world leaders, he has a deep affection for the UK, or Scotland where his mother was born.
Mind you, the Prime Minister will have to have her bulls**t radar switched on. During my documentary I discovered he had a distant relationship with the truth.
He said he owned 100 per cent of the Empire State Building. He later confessed his stake had shrunk to 40 per cent then, miraculously, 20 per cent. Who knows what the truth was?
Even so, I backed him to survive the financial problems he was experiencing at the time as bankruptcy loomed.
And on ITV’s This Morning this week, I prophesied he would win the election.
Trump’s will to win, his command of the stage, his almost mystical ability to undermine Clinton’s confidence, allied to his own brilliant prosecution of his own mantra, convinced me nothing could stop him.
So I wasn’t surprised when he carried the country but I can’t pretend I was overjoyed.
I have been appalled by his “locker room” language — but we are where we are.
So if Trump is unable to carry out all his promises to the white/blue collar fraternity who feel they have been left behind, how will he explain this away?
Trump is nothing if not plausible.
He will tell them he needs more time. He will tell them he needs another term. And with his luck he will probably get it.
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