OPINION:
Tony Schwartz, the co-author of “The Art of the Deal,” took to national television to speak about President Donald Trump’s current state of mind.
And what he said was hardly kind — rather, it was more a betrayal of the Trump hand that fed.
Schwartz, speaking in the wake of Robert Mueller’s appointment as special counsel to investigate Russian influence of the presidential election, said this, to CNN’s Anderson Cooper: Trump’s in a dramatic downfall.
“There is no right and wrong for Trump,” he said. “There’s winning and losing. And that’s very different from right and wrong. And right now, he’s in pure terror that he is going to lose. And by the way, he is going to lose.”
Schwartz also said Trump ought to “figure out a way to resign” before he’s put through the embarrassing process of impeachment — as a means of controlling the narrative so he can exit the White House while riding a self-declared wave of victory.
This was hardly Schwartz’s only public dress-down of Trump.
He also penned in The Washington Post an opinion piece recounting his first meetings with Trump back in 1985, and his subsequent impressions over the months, as they wrote “The Art of the Deal.”
And once again, the image Schwartz painted was not complimentary.
“From the very first time I interviewed him in his office in Trump Tower in 1985, the image I had of Trump was that of a black hole,” Schwartz wrote. “Whatever goes in quickly disappears without a trace. Nothing sustains. … What Trump craves most deeply is the adulation he has found so fleeting.”
Schwartz also spoke of Trump’s spiral into “survival mode on a moment’s notice” — witness, the “thousands of tweets” he’s written in recent months.
“In neurochemical terms, when he feels threatened or thwarted, Trump moves into a fight-or-flight state,” Schwartz wrote.
Well here’s a quick response: Who doesn’t?
Who doesn’t, when facing threats and attacks, move into fight-or-flight mode? That’s just basic Psychology 101, right there.
Schwartz’s attacks, while interesting in a stare-at-the-car-wreck-on-the-side-of-the-road type of way, aren’t exactly enlightening — or helpful to advancing the political discourse in a highly charged atmosphere. He comes across as a disgruntled former employee.
A far-left liberal, intent on taking down a president with whom he disagrees.
“The most recent time I spoke to Trump — and the first such occasion in nearly three decades — was July 14, 2016, shortly before the New Yorker published an article by Jane Mayer about my experience writing ’The Art of the Deal.’ Trump was just about to win the Republican nomination for president,” Schwartz wrote, in The Post.
He said his cell phone rang, and it was Trump.
“He had just gotten off a call with a fact-checker for the New Yorker, and he didn’t mince words. ’I just want to tell you that I think you’re very disloyal,’ he started in. Then he berated me and threatened me for a few minutes,” Schwartz wrote. “I pushed back, gently but firmly. And then suddenly, as abruptly as be began the call, he ended it, ’Have a nice life,’ he said, and hung up.”
Have to say — on this, Trump appears quite right. Schwartz’s needless takedown of Trump on television and in The Post certainly reeks of disloyalty, not to mention disgruntlement and petty partisanship. And toward what end? It seems that old adage might best apply here: If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.
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