Mark Leibovich: “In the summer of 2015, back when he was still talking to traitorous reporters like me, I spent extended stretches with Donald Trump. He was in the early phase of his first campaign for president, though he had quickly made himself the inescapable figure of that race—as he would in pretty much every Republican contest since. We would hop around his various clubs, buildings, holding rooms, limos, planes, golf carts, and mob scenes, Trump disgorging his usual bluster, slander, flattery, and obvious lies. The diatribes were exhausting and disjointed.”
“But I was struck by one theme that Trump kept pounding on over and over: that he was used to dealing with ‘brutal, vicious killers’—by which he meant his fellow ruthless operators in showbiz, real estate, casinos, and other big-boy industries. In contrast, he told me, politicians are saps and weaklings.”
Said Trump: “I will roll over them… They might speak badly about me now, but they won’t later.”
He added that they would eventually submit to him and fear him: “It will be very easy; I can make them evolve. They will evolve.”
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