Trump’s ‘Art of the Deal’ co-author says Trump presidency ‘would end civilization’

“Starting in late 1985”, she writes, “Schwartz spent 18 months with Trump-camping out in his office, joining him on his helicopter, tagging along at meetings, and spending weekends with him at his Manhattan apartment and his Florida estate”.

“Many thanks Donald Trump for suggesting I run for President, based on the fact that I wrote ‘The Art of the Deal, ‘” Schwartz wrote on Twitter afterwards. “I put lipstick on a pig”, he told the magazine.

According to The New Yorker, Schwartz feels remorse for his part in “presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is”.

But on Monday morning, the first day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, the book’s co-author Tony Schwartz came out blasting Trump. While he doesn’t feel he’s absolving himself, he says he likes that he’s using the money to “donate to the people whose rights Trump seeks to abridge”. He recounts what he saw as a lack of attention span regarding “any topic, other than his own self-aggrandizement” so extreme Schwartz had to alter the way in which he wrote the book (taking a fly-on-the-wall approach, rather than directly interviewing him).

This year, Schwartz has heard some argue that there must be a more thoughtful and nuanced version of Donald Trump that he is keeping in reserve for after the campaign.

SCHWARTZ: You know, no, I suspect there are quite a number of things that were false. “I’ll carry this until the end of my life”, he said. Schwartz didn’t hold back, predicting that if Trump became the next president, that it could be the “end of civilization”.

Although it’s hard to imagine the man who claims to “have the best words” was able to pen a bestseller, Trump maintains that he, not Schwartz-whose name is given a byline on the book’s cover and was paid half of all royalties-is the book’s principal author. My most generous guess was that he resented how I’d quoted him blowing off his wedding anniversary to fly to Palm Beach – a decision that prompted chuckles from Trump’s coterie of yes-men – and then described him leaning in to notify me, “There are a lot of good-looking women here”.

“You know, it’s a terrifying thing”. Had I thought that 30 years ago I wouldn’t have written the book but for 29 years I didn’t think he would and it didn’t seem like it was important to speak out. “Some say it was the best-selling business book ever”.

They got into a bit of a spat over the phone, during which Trump reportedly called Schwartz disloyal and took credit for his success by stating, “Without me, you wouldn’t be where you are now”.