Donald Trump once tried to sell a luxury condo to a journalist at a dinner party

Donald Trump beside an artists rendition of Trump Tower Chicago.

(Image credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

published 27 May 2016

Writer Peter Manso was working on a story about Roy Cohn for Playboy in 1981 when Cohn invited him to a dinner party he was hosting. The guests included Estee and Joe Lauder, the Baron and Baroness Ricardo "Ricky" di Portanova of the Cullen oil fortune, and, of course, Donald Trump and his first wife, Ivana.

Writing for Politico Magazine, Manso recalled how he was seated beside the real estate mogul at dinner, only to be given a Trump Tower sales pitch complete with forceful encouragement to buy a luxury apartment he couldn't possibly afford:

I grinned. Years before I'd learned that the proper response to rich people who don't, or won't, appreciate that your situation isn't the same as theirs is to explode the fiction right off since there's always the possibility that what they're doing stems not from ignorance so much as they're trying to make you feel small and uncomfortable. It's a form of bullying.It's also crass. Here Trump was at his pal lawyer's dinner table in this lovely house, sitting with at least two other couples who could have bought and sold him several times over yet he's desperately vying for top-dog status, flexing muscle by trying to sell a freelance writer real estate. It was the same smarmy narcissism that you find in used car salesmen and which, plainly, these past 35 years has fueled Trump's biz dealings, his TV forays, his penchant for compliant blonds and, now, his quest for the presidency. [Politico]

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.

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