‘Art Of The Deal’ Ghostwriter Says Trump Book ‘Biggest Regret’ Of His Life: ‘There’s An Absence Of A Heart’
Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter behind Donald Trump’s Art of the Deal, says that penning the book is the “biggest regret” of his life, according to CBS News.
Before he became president, Trump would often cite his 1987 bestseller as an example of his dealmaking skills, but Schwartz has since gone public a number of times to point out the discrepancies in the work. Just this month, after The New York Times published a report detailing Trump’s massive losses in the decades preceding the end of last century, Schwartz said that The Art of the Deal should be moved to the “Fiction” section in bookstores or made to go out of print completely, as reported by The Inquisitr.
And now, talking to CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett during a podcast interview, Schwartz confessed that he deeply regrets penning the book for Trump in the first place.
“I knew this was a bad guy when I did the book,” Schwartz said, admitting that he knew his employer at the time was fabricating things to make him come across as an expert dealmaker.
Schwartz said that unlike him, Trump is not bothered by the litany of falsehoods he has mentioned or continues to mention, adding that there’s an “emptiness inside Trump.”
“Trump is not only willing to lie, but he doesn’t get bothered by it, doesn’t feel guilty about it, isn’t preoccupied by it. There’s an emptiness inside Trump. There’s an absence of a soul. There’s an absence of a heart.”
Trump's ghostwriter says writing "The Art of the Deal" is the greatest regret of his life https://t.co/ntdp0m9N8Y pic.twitter.com/NgaOOuxZvr
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 24, 2019
Schwartz went on to say that he felt especially pained because many Trump supporters almost consider the book a “sacred text,” whereas, in reality, it presents anything but the truth. Having accompanied Trump to more than 75 rallies during the 2016 presidential campaign, Schwartz said that he saw many rallygoers carrying a copy of Art of the Deal, and he felt as if he had cheated them.
Trump’s 1987 book was a massive success, propelled into the bestseller list thanks to a glowing endorsement in The New York Times at the time of its release, in which Chris Lehmann-Haupt lauded Trump for making “one believe for a moment in the American dream again.”
Despite having made hundreds of thousands of dollars thanks to the popularity of the book, Schwartz said that he is not at all pleased with what he did. To rid himself of some of the guilt, the Art of the Deal ghostwriter said that he has donated the “blood money” emerging from royalties to charities over the last couple of years.
