‘Art Of The Deal’ Ghostwriter Says Book Should Be Classified As Fiction After Report Of Trump’s Massive Losses
Tony Schwartz wrote the best-selling book that helped Donald Trump gain a reputation as a shrewd businessman and top-notch deal maker, but now the author thinks that The Art of the Deal should be moved to the “Fiction” section in bookstores — or taken off shelves entirely.
Schwartz, who has become a chief critic of Trump’s presidency, responded to a report from The New York Times that showed Trump had massive business losses over the course of two decades. The report showed that Trump lost more than $1 billion over that period, which appeared to be more than twice what any other taxpayer in the United States had lost.
Schwartz said that the book he wrote about Trump now seems to ring very hollow.
“Given the Times report on Trump’s staggering losses, I’d be fine if Random House simply took the book out of print,” Schwartz tweeted on Wednesday. “Or recategorized it as fiction.”
As The Hill noted, Schwartz began speaking out against Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, saying that Trump had very little to do with the writing of the book. He also refers to the book now as something of a marketing material for Trump, painting a picture of a sharp businessman that didn’t match the scatterbrained and unpredictable person that Schwartz said he saw.
Schwartz has also said he believes Donald Trump will resign from office if the heat from the Russia investigation or other oversight investigations grew too much, noting that it has always been in his nature to quit and try to claim he was a victim of an unfair process.
The report of the massive business losses came as Donald Trump has fought back against efforts of Democrats to obtain his tax returns, which critics believe will uncover massive fraud. Another report from The New York Times last year showed that Trump engaged in a number of schemes to avoid paying taxes and prop up his failing businesses. The report noted that Trump’s father pumped a total of $414 million in today’s dollars into his son’s real estate empire, making up for Donald Trump’s poor decisions and management.
Donald Trump defended the report this week showing his massive business losses, saying doing so was a common practice among real estate developers. Critics seized on the Twitter posts, saying it appeared Trump was bragging about tax evasion.
With Trump now known globally as a semi-literate fraud, ‘Art of the Deal’ writer Tony Schwartz, who wrote the 1987 book that criminal con-man Trump gets credit for, wants publisher Random House to ‘recategorize it as fiction’, or take the book out of print https://t.co/CJ2llmhhRZ
— Bill Madden (he/him/él) ?? (@maddenifico) May 8, 2019
While Donald Trump appeared to admit to the massive business losses and justify his reasons for doing so, he also referred to the report as “a highly inaccurate Fake News hit job!”
