Donald Trump's deepest fear is public humiliation, 2014 interviews suggest
You may have noticed that Donald Trump loves to win and really, really hates to lose. Well, The New York Times now has pseudo-scientific proof to back up your observation. And it turns out, what really burdens Trump, says Times reporter Michael Barbaro, is "his deep-seated fear of public embarrassment." There's quite a bit of evidence for this, including the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner, but Barbaro and his colleagues listened to more than five hours of interviews Trump gave to biographer Michael D'Antonio in 2014, plus conversations with first wife Ivana Trump and Trump's children. D'Antonio, who doesn't support Trump's candidacy, made them available to the Times.
"The recordings reveal a man who is fixated on his own celebrity, anxious about losing his status, and contemptuous of those who fall from grace," Barbaro writes, and the Times embedded some snippets so you can judge for yourself. "Trump makes clear just how difficult it is for him to imagine — let alone accept — defeat." In the interviews, Trump says he loves to fight, doesn't have any heroes, doesn't "like talking about the past," and doesn't want to think about the meaning of his life. "I don't like to analyze myself because I might not like what I see," he said. He feels the same way about others, too. "For the most part," he said, "you can't respect people because most people aren't worthy of respect."
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