Donald J. Trump, Chairman and President, The Trump Organization

Oh, it's my honor. Thank you very much. Great honor.

That's a very tough question and a very good question. Well, first of all, David called me. He said, 'Would you do this?' When David calls, I say yes. What other people call, maybe not so much. But it's a great honor to be here tonight, I must say. And it's an amazing group, so many friends. One of them is David Bossy, who right now is heading up that dinner and that whole weekend. He said, 'In Iowa,' and he said, 'Would you do it?' And I have great respect for David and what he's done and what he represents, so I agreed to do it. It's going to be a great event. This is your biggest sellout crowd. I think we're going to have the biggest sellout crowd that they've ever had in Iowa too, from what I'm understanding. So I look forward to that. But I'm actually also going the night before. There's a real estate dinner in Iowa done by a very, very big company and a terrific company, and they asked me to be the keynote speaker. So I'm there for two reasons: real estate and politics.

Well, you know, I've been building buildings all my life. We've done a great job, as you understand. And one thing about David: if he didn't think we did a good job, I wouldn't be here tonight, that I can tell you. But we've done a good job, and I am considering it very strongly. A lot of people think that I have fun with it, that I'm playing games, that I enjoy the process. And I do enjoy the process to a certain extent. But the country is in serious, serious trouble. We just, as you know, we just broke $18 trillion in debt, largely to different places like China and others. And we are in very, very serious trouble. So I am considering it very strongly.

Sometime after the beginning of the year, probably sometime in March, April, or May.

The governor? You know, I've dealt in politics all my life. All of my life, I've been in politics, usually as a supporter on the other side. I support a lot of different people, people that I think are going to be good. I'm a Republican, but I'll support people that I really think are going to be good. And frankly, I just think we need something very good, very, very fast, or we're going to be in very big trouble as a country. A lot of it is common sense. For instance, the torture report. Do we have to announce the torture report, which by the way cost $40 million to do? I'm trying to figure out how does this report cost $40 million? They paid these couple of guys $40 million. They paid $80 million to come up with the process. There are so many things that I see in this country, whether it's common sense or whatever. And I have a big voice. I have millions and millions of followers on Twitter and Facebook. When I say something, some people don't like it, but most people do like it. Whether it's jobs, the thing I like best and I think the thing that I'm best at is the economy and how to put people to work. That's what we need in this country right now.

Well, I have a great company with tremendously talented people. I have some of those people sitting right here at the table, some of my executives. But I also have children. Three of my five children are in the company: Don, Eric, and Ivanka. And they've done a fantastic job. Four years ago, I was leading in the polls. I was beating everybody in the polls. What happened is I just really was loving what I do. I love what I do. I would rather do what I'm doing than run for president. But I also love the country more. I just think that unless I see somebody that's outstanding, I would very much be inclined to do it.

I was sent to a military academy. My father said, 'You know, you need a little discipline. You're sort of tough to handle.' They sent me up to a military academy, New York Military Academy, where we had some really tough people working up there. I was supposed to be a very smart person, but I was on the aggressive side. They were terrific. These were drill sergeants. We had one, Major DeBias. He used to be Sergeant DeBias at the time. He got promoted over the years to Major, and now he's actually a Colonel. He's very old, but he's a great guy. He was tough. You didn't talk back to him. Today you couldn't do this. This was a different world. You just didn't talk back to this guy or it was bad, bad trouble. Today they call it harassment. It would be the biggest front page of every newspaper. But it was a good place and it was a tough place. I ended up graduating at the highest rank. So I acclimated. You have to acclimate. It wasn't my climate, but by the time I was there five years, by the time I finished, I graduated at the highest rank. I learned a lot about leadership and I learned a lot about a lot of things.

Well, I always was somebody that loved sports and I always did well at sports. I love baseball in particular. I was on the football team and I was on the wrestling team, not a great wrestler, not a great basketball player. I had bad jumping ability. I just was not able to get up there. But I was a very good baseball player. I guess I always did think. I was recruited and they all wanted me to go into major league. I was a little different. Those days you'd make $3. There was no money, no anything. Ultimately, my father had a business in Brooklyn, mostly in Brooklyn, New York, as a real estate developer. Ultimately, I did that for a lot of the right reasons and it became a lot of fun. I wanted to make it more exciting. I always loved show business and I loved other things, but I think we put some show business into the real estate business.

Well, I majored in finance. I liked finance. I did well and I loved the Wharton School of Finance. I always thought it was a great school.

It's sort of an interesting story. I actually applied to USC where they had a great School of Cinema. They said that was like the Wharton School of Cinema. I applied. What happened was a little interesting. There was a man who was having troubles in real estate and he came to me, smart guy, and he said, 'Could you help me?' I gave him a lot of advice. I was only 19 years old. This guy was a top Broadway producer. I said, 'You know, I'd love to go to USC and all this stuff.' I kept talking about movies. He said, 'You know, I tell you what. You just saved my life. You really know real estate. You got to be crazy to go into show business.' It really affected me. I went in with my father. I was in Brooklyn for five years, my first five years. Went into the business with my father, did some really, really good deals for him. He was very, very happy with me. He was a tough guy, very tough, and had a great heart. He was a good man, but he was a tough man. He would never let anybody sign checks, as an example, under any circumstances. He had to sign every check. Today they sign them by computer. I don't know about your company, but today you press a button and everybody gets paid. There's no negotiation. Whatever it is, if it's a mistake, they never find it. He would sign every single check, look, study it, and call the people: 'You're getting too much money. You shouldn't be getting this.' It's a little different than we have today. I actually continue that practice. I sign many, many, many checks. The company's gotten so big it's hard, but I like signing checks because I see what's going on much better by doing that.

He really respected it. He was in Brooklyn and Queens. We'd look across the river, the East River, and I'd see those big tall buildings. I said, 'Pop, that's what I want to do. I want to build those buildings. I want to be there. I love it. I got to be there.' He sort of said, 'That's not our territory.' Like a lot of fathers would say. He said, 'You don't know anything about that. That's not our territory. Let's stay in Brooklyn.' My father started off building one-family homes and then apartments for mostly middle-income apartments, almost all middle income and some low income, using federal subsidies, the 236 program, a lot of different programs, Section 8. We had a Section 8 program which was amazing. They gave you the money for nothing. It was actually a pretty good program for the developer, but it also allowed people to live at a very low rent. My father did a lot of that and I did it with him and we did it well. But I said, 'You know, Pop, I want to go in.' I started with the Grand Hyatt Hotel. I took an option and I converted that to the Grand. It was originally the old Commodore Hotel. Sort of interesting how my life progresses, where we go from that to the...

I put in almost no money.

Well, it was owned by the Penn Central Railroad and it was run by some very good people. Actually, it's very interesting because he happens to be a very good man. It was Victor Palmieri and Company. One of the people is John Koskinen. Does anyone know John Koskinen? He's the head of the IRS. He's a very good man. While I am a strong conservative and a strong Republican, he's a friend of mine and he did a great job running Victor Palmieri. I made deals with John and the people at Victor Palmieri and took options on the building. After I took options on the Commodore, I then went to the city because the city was really in deep trouble. I was about 28 years old and the city was really in trouble. I said, 'Look, you're going to have to give me tax abatement, otherwise this thing is never going to happen.' Then I went to Hyatt. I said, 'You guys put up all the money and I'll try and get the approvals.' I got all the approvals. Hyatt, Jay Pritzker and the Pritzker family, they put up the money and we built a hotel. We were 50-50 partners and it became very, very successful. Then I did the Convention Center and lots of other jobs.

That was owned by a company named Genesco. Originally, Genesco, I guess, from Nashville, Tennessee. Genesco was run by a father and son. It was a public company and they were fighting like cats and dogs, unlike your children and my children so far, we want to keep it that way by the way. But they were fighting like cats and dogs. I was reading about it because I love reading the financial papers. At those times, it was exclusively papers. Today it's a little bit papers and lots of other things. I saw the trouble that they were having, that Genesco was in deep trouble. I knew they owned Bonwit Teller department store. So I called the head of Genesco and I went to Nashville, Tennessee, where I have a warm spot in my heart for Nashville because I made an amazing deal there. I took an option to buy the site. What happened is, as soon as that option was announced, every developer in the world went there trying to buy because even then it was the best site, 57th and Fifth, next to Tiffany's. It is the best site. But it was too late because I already had it signed. They tried to get out of it because obviously they saw it was much more valuable than what I paid. Then I ultimately dealt with a great man named Walter Hoving, who was the head of Tiffany's. He took Tiffany's to great levels. He took Tiffany's from trouble to great levels. I bought the air rights over Tiffany's and I bought the air rights over another place and a few more air rights. I ended up with a 68-story building that turned out to be a tremendous success, as you know, right from the beginning, called Trump Tower. When I bought the air rights from Tiffany's, I had the right to call it Tiffany Tower. I went to a friend of mine, a very streetwise guy, Dennis Stein, and I said, 'Dennis, I have the right to call it Tiffany Tower, but I want to call it Trump Tower. What would you do?' He said, 'When you change your name to Tiffany, call it Tiffany Tower.' So I called it Trump Tower, even though I had this incredible right to use the name Tiffany. It was one of the better things I've done.

I think it might have worked very well. Hey, Michael Bloomberg's done very well, right?

A lot of people think it was, they wrote a big article recently like I had this brilliant strategy of naming. Honestly, it was sort of like just happened. It started with Trump Tower. I did the Grand Hyatt Hotel first in Manhattan. That was my first job. I did the Convention Center, Jacob Javits Convention Center. Took options on the land, got the state to build on it, and did well with it. They built the Jacob Javits Convention Center. Nobody knew that much about me. Then when I did Trump Tower, I never thought at a young age like 30 I would have the best piece of land in the world. It never changes. That piece of land was the best then and it's the best now. We signed a lease with Gucci that's one of the great retail leases ever signed, as you understand. I never really knew. Then when I called it Trump Tower, a lot of things happened because of the prominence of the location, the success of the building. I was able to get it zoned. A lot of people said you'll never be able to get it zoned, you'll never build a tall building, you'll never be allowed to build an all-glass beautiful monolithic building. Ada Louise Huxtable of the New York Times, the architectural critic, she gave it phenomenal reviews, just phenomenal. Then later on, Herbert Muschamp of the New York Times gave it phenomenal reviews. What I did is it just morphed into other things. Then I ended up doing a book, The Art of the Deal, and that became such a great thing.

No, I don't think they'll fill them. That's your second big story tonight. I don't think they will. There are too many being built. 432 Park Avenue, you've seen this one, it's like 90 stories. They're friends of mine doing it. Don't forget, they have the advantage that it was early, early on, and they're very good people. I think that's going to do okay because it's early. But the ones coming online, there are so many of them. I look at the plans. I study real estate. I know every inch of Manhattan. I know which store is available five years before the lease comes due. I look at all of the plans for Manhattan and I just don't see any way. Russia's been taken out of it over the last year. As you know, Russia's gone. A lot of the Russians that were buying these apartments are no longer buying apartments. They've got bigger problems. Frankly, I just don't see any way they're going to do it.

A man came to my office. I won't use his name, but he's a very well-known, very big developer. He has a site to build a 100-story building on the site. I don't love the site, but it's good, not great. The great always works. The good doesn't always work in real estate. He has a 90-story building, 100-story building, you could do sort of whatever you want. He wanted to sell it to me. I've been through great, great times, but I've also had to fight like crazy to keep everything going. I said, 'You know, you do it because I don't have the guts anymore to do it.' He said, 'I promise I won't tell anybody you said that.' Nobody's going to, but it's true. I see the market. I think it will be oversaturated.

Well, I just wanted to continue to live my lifestyle. I like planes and everything else. Those days I wasn't married, so I like plenty of beautiful women. I like my lifestyle. I didn't want to lose my lifestyle.

First of all, the shuttle was great because what happened with the shuttle was this was like 57th and 5th. That was the shuttle going to Washington and Boston. In the airline business, that was sort of like the best asset. So I had that. The banks came. The market had totally crashed, but the banks came to me and people came to me. I made a deal where it was a great deal to sell the shuttle even in bad times. I bought the Plaza Hotel. I made an unbelievable deal in selling the Plaza Hotel because it was so... If that hotel was one block in any direction, I would have died with it. But because it was the Plaza, I made an unbelievable deal in getting out of the Plaza. It just worked out really well. Other things I did were... I was telling David before, the crazy thing about Atlantic City, I was there during the boom time when it was a monopoly and did phenomenally in Atlantic City. But then Atlantic City changed. A lot of bad decisions. They built a convention center. I fought like hell that they wouldn't do this. They built the convention center in the wrong location. They didn't do the airport properly. The politicians took over Atlantic City and absolutely destroyed it. But Atlantic City for me has been a great experience and I got out seven years ago and again made a lot of money. I do play the bankruptcy laws, not individually but corporately. Other people do too. Many of your friends that we were talking about before, you look at Caesars is going to go bankrupt. Everyone plays the bankruptcy laws. It's just like a standard little story. When I play, I buy a building. The building is in turmoil. It's got a big mortgage. The bank is being vicious and ruthless. I buy the building. I call up the bank. They're not nice. So I throw it into a Chapter 11. I beat the hell out of them. Then I get huge reductions and then I make a lot of money in the building. But when I buy the building, they say Trump files for bankruptcy. I didn't file for bankruptcy. I use it as a tool. The enemies, I call them the losers and haters, I call them on Twitter, they say, 'Oh, Trump went bankrupt.' I use that as a business tool. So do many of your friends. You look at whether it's Sam Zell, whether it's Leon Black, whether it's Carl Icahn with TWA. We use the different laws. The only thing is that with me, they always say every time I do it to my advantage, they say Trump went bankrupt. If David does it, nobody's going to say that.

Well, I've never gone bankrupt. Never.

That was an interesting deal. From Florida, that's one of the great pieces of land and one of the greatest houses in America, I would say. I turned it into the Mar-a-Lago Club, which is very successful. At the time, this was in 1986. I went there and it was for sale for $38 million. I said I don't want to pay that. That was a lot of money. 1986, $38 million, that's like $300 million today. So they wanted $38 million. I said, 'You know what?' But stupidly, the Marjorie Merriweather Post Foundation, the children were not smart like she was. When she died, they sold the beach. They sold the beach to a friend of mine. The friend of mine was a great guy. He founded Kentucky Fried Chicken, he founded a couple of different hospitals, Hospital Corporation of America, Massey. He was unfortunately very sick. He had cancer. I went to him and I said, 'Would you do me a favor? Could I buy the beach now?' This is the beach in front of Mar-a-Lago. Mar-a-Lago is on 22 acres. It's this massive house. They sold the beach for $2 million or a million and a half dollars. He said, 'You know, Donald, you're a friend of mine. I will sell you the beach.' I overpaid for it. I paid $2 million for the beach, but that was the whole beach in front of Mar-a-Lago. Then I announced I'm going to build the ugliest building ever. It was going to be just a long wall to take all the views because I didn't want anyone to buy Mar-a-Lago. It was embarrassing. I put this thing with no windows, no nothing, just a wall so you couldn't see the ocean. The town almost got sick. They wanted to change the zoning. But I did it for a reason. Then people, Ross Perot and many, many people wanted to buy Mar-a-Lago, but they said we have to have the beach. So people came and they offered me a fortune for the beach. I said no, no, no. Then I forgot about it. A couple of years later, I got a call and they said, 'We'd like to sell you Mar-a-Lago.' I almost said, 'What's Mar-a-Lago?' You tend to forget. We go on to the next one, onto the next victim. I said, 'What's your price?' They said, 'We want $8 million.' Now they wanted it in the 30s, and now they wanted $8 million because they couldn't sell it without the beach. Stupidly, I didn't get along with them. Actually, I didn't get along with Dina Merrill at all because she was upset that I bought it. I said, 'Why don't you buy it?' She was the daughter of the great Marjorie Merriweather Post, who was married, as you know, to E.F. Hutton, one of the great financiers. When she opposed everything I did in Palm Beach, I actually said a statement which is never very good for a relationship. I said, 'Marjorie Merriweather Post was a great beauty, a magnificently beautiful woman on top of being smart. She was born with the mother's beauty but not the mother's brain.' This was not a good quote on the front page of the Palm Beach Post in terms of long-term relationship. But she could have bought it and she chose not to. She was in charge of the foundation. They sold it anyway. I turned it into a club. I got it for $8 million. They said, in fact, this is something you know. David negotiates. If you say a company's worth a billion dollars, he's going to say, 'Well, I'll give you $500 million.' When they said $8 million, I didn't negotiate. You'll be ashamed of me. I said, 'I'll take it.' It's the first time that's ever happened to me. I said it because I was afraid they'd change it. So I bought it for $8 million plus $2 million for the beach. I turned it into a club and it's an amazing club.

I made the land into a great club, Trump International Golf Club, which is now about 15 years old, which has become one of the most successful clubs.

Actually, I bought one in foreclosure. I love foreclosure, especially when it's somebody else's. I bought a big, beautiful piece of land in Westchester in foreclosure. I said, 'What am I going to do with it?' I made it into a golf club and it became very successful. I bought this one out of foreclosure. I ended up with a tremendous lawsuit. Had a good lawyer. They ended up settling the lawsuit by making me a deal to buy 500 acres at a very good price of land in Palm Beach. I turned it into a club. It's become such a hot club. Now Mar-a-Lago and that club are sort of like sisters. They do tremendously together, the way they play off each other. You've been there, so you know what I mean. It's a great place. The food's great, service is great, hospitality is great. You always go around and say hello to people. I'm glad I was worried, but it's true.

For me, it's been great because I've been buying them over the last 10 years since the depression. I call it the depression because it really has been for a lot of people. It's been very bad. I've been buying them. For instance, in Loudoun County, 600 acres right on the Potomac River, right up the road, which is phenomenal. I bought that for a very good price. One of the gentlemen that I made the deal with is here, so I'm not going to talk too much about what a good deal it was. But they also made a good deal because they didn't know what the hell they were doing. I'm only kidding. I'm only kidding.

You're right, but they're great people and we turned that into a tremendous success in Washington. We have so... but what I do like is this: first of all, golf is doing very well internationally, Asia, China, all over the place, South America. They just approved it for the Olympics, you know, it's in the next Olympics, it's never been. And golf is doing really well if you have good places, if you have the good clubs. But what I really like also is the real estate. When I have 600 acres on the Potomac River, when I have 800 acres on the Pacific Ocean facing Catalina Island, and you know two and a half miles of frontage in Los Angeles, you build homes around these. I do, but I don't even like... I hate to sell property.

Two rounds. I'd love to play more, but I just don't.

I played with everybody. Tiger and Phil and everybody. It's great, it's great to play with them, and that's when you realize you're not really a very good golfer, because they are tremendously talented people, amazingly talented. You know, it's a chain, right? Like you in business and a couple of the other folks in the room in business, you look at this little triangle and it's that tip of that triangle that you have. So they're tremendously talented people and really good people. One of the things I like about golf is that when I buy these courses, I'm buying tremendous amounts of land. So if I ever say, well, you know what, I'm going to close a golf course someplace, I'm going to own 700 or 600 or 800 acres on the Potomac River, it's pretty good stuff. Or if I'm going to own 600 acres on the ocean on the Pacific Ocean, I have... you know, it's a statement I always make: I never lost money on a lake, a river, or an ocean. I love that. In Scotland, I just bought Turnberry, the great Turnberry, home of the British Open, which they call the Open Championship because it's probably the most important of the majors. And it's just a great thing, and that's a thousand acres on the ocean. And you just don't lose money with that. And the clubs do very well. I don't want to close any, I don't want to sell any, but it's great real estate. The other minor thing too: I've made tremendous deals because of my relationship to golf. I play golf with people that love golf and I become great friends with them. I have so many friends, I don't want to mention names. Deals on the golf course, I make deals because of golf. I have so many wonderful friends. People like Terry Lundgren, who's a fantastic guy, he's done an amazing job with Macy's, and he's a friend of mine, we play golf together. And others that I could never have the relationship with these people if I said let's go out to dinner, let's go out to lunch. I don't even think I'd have... I've made many, many deals. Actually, the Trump Tower site, which is one of the great real estate deals, I really started that by playing a round of golf with somebody that was very attuned to that whole situation in Nashville with Janessa.

I have people that are really good, and they come to me and they show me. And I don't spend huge amounts of time because we have really... you know, PVH is a fantastic company, they do much of it. And Macy's does a fantastic job. And we have ties, shirts, suits, cuffs, all that stuff. And they do... the tie is one of the top-selling ties. This is actually a Trump tie. Anybody want it? But I figured in case that question, I had to wear it. But you know, it's interesting: I used to spend a fortune buying... I don't spend, I get them free because of The Apprentice. Okay, so they give me ties. But still, $500 ties, a little piece of water gets on the tie, it's destroyed. These things are like steel and they look better. So what, right?

Well, The Apprentice is interesting, especially if you knew my father. You know, he was all business, and for him to even see... and he got to see just a little glimpse of it. But Mark Burnett, who did Survivor, a great guy and a friend of mine... but I didn't know him. And I have the Trump Rink in Central Park, as you know, formerly the Wollman Rink. And I took it and fixed it and made it great, and I've had it for many, many years. And it's the number one rink in the world for ice skating. And they wanted to do a CBS, Les Moonves, another great guy, they wanted to do a Survivor set live. So they built a jungle on the ice skating rink with the big buildings behind, and it was live and it was great. And Mark Burnett called me, invited me. He said, 'Donald, would you... I have a concept for a show, and I'll only do it if you do it.' And I said, 'What's the show?' He said, 'It's called The Apprentice, and basically you're doing this and that, and ultimately firing people without using that word.' But he said, 'Ultimately you're getting rid of a person.' And this was really the first of its kind, because it's been copied 15 different times. The Apprentice has been copied, and I'm very happy to say every single one of them has been a failure. All of the people that did them, I could go into the names. Anyway, so I said, 'Let's take a look.' And we did it. And I have an agent from William Morris, a big agent actually, and he said, 'It'll never work. Don't do it. You'll embarrass yourself. It'll be horrible, horrible.' I said, 'I have a problem. I shook hands. I shook hands with NBC, I shook hands with Mark Burnett. I have to do it.' He said, 'Don't do it. I demand... you're not... I'm not going to let you embarrass yourself.' So I said, 'I have a problem.' I actually happen to... most people don't know two things: they don't know it's my hair, which it really is, you know that, I think you know that, I hope you know that. And also, I'm an honorable person. Most people don't know that either. But I shook hands. They assume I'm not, that's primarily because I'm in the real estate business in New York. But they assume I'm not. But I shook hands. I said, 'Look, I can't... you know, I shook hands with the head of NBC and I shook hands with Mark Burnett. I have to do it.' He was very angry. Anyway, the show goes on. It started at 10, it went to 8. Now 10 is massive, you know, you have hundreds of shows on. So everyone was shocked. And it was not supposed to do well. There was a critic in, I think, the Washington Post who said, 'To have a successful show, you have to have women as a percentage of the audience. And what woman is going to want to watch Donald Trump?' I was very insulted. I said, 'I've done so badly?' So it went on at 10, went to 8, went to 5, went to 3, and went to 1. I had the number one show in the world. I mean, I was the number one show in the country, number one television show. And the agent called me up and he said, 'Donald, could I see you?' I said, 'About what, Jim?' He said, 'Well, your show just went to number one. Congratulations, it's a fantastic tribute, and I'd like to come over and say hello.' I said, 'What do you want?' He said, 'I think I'm entitled to a commission.' I said, 'How much do you think you're entitled to?' He said, 'Would $4 million be fair?' I said, 'Jim, you're fired.' That's just... but the... and by the way, now The Apprentice goes on again. I mean, this is now 10 years, 14 seasons. It was so successful. And one thing about that business, it's sort of not like our business. A lot of times it takes years and years for a deal. With that business, it's all about ratings. So we're going on on January 4th with a new season.

Well, that was my idea. The concept was we would let people go over a course of 16 weeks on television. And the first show, the first season, there was one guy, and he was a nice guy, but he was really pathetic. And I felt so bad that I got angry at him, and I said... I won't use his name, but it's very easy to find out. I said, 'So-and-so, you're fired.' And the whole place went crazy. The cameramen, everybody went crazy. And that's how that came about. It wasn't scripted. There's no script at all. It's all... you know.

In New York. We shoot it in Trump Tower. We actually have a special boardroom that's made. And they all say, 'Well, why don't you use your real boardroom?' Because it's really a studio behind the ballroom. They have the boardroom, they have cameras all around. We have about 32, or at least 32 cameras in the boardroom during the shooting.

I did. I hired a couple of guys. Bill Rancic did a great job, he was the first one. And I've hired Andrew Litinsky and numerous people that were on the show. But when I was going to hire them, I would never... if I thought somebody was really great and I was going to hire them, I would never let them win, because the price goes up. So I would always... it's true, I would always make sure I fired them sometime prior to the end. So I've hired a number.

Well, it's in Charlottesville, Virginia. It's 1,500 acres, it's phenomenal property. John Kluge was a friend of mine. I was much younger than him, but he and I always liked each other. And he used to go around saying, 'Donald Trump is a really smart guy.' I don't want to brag, he used to say, 'Donald Trump is the smartest of the young people.' And I used to like John Kluge, you know, Metromedia. And he married Patricia, and that marriage was a disaster. And he had this piece of property, and he gave it intelligently gave it to her, and he said, 'You should build a winery with the money I gave.' Well, she built the winery, and she spent so much money building... he wanted this to happen, and she went busted. And the bank took it over, and I bought it from the bank. And they had hundreds of millions of dollars in it, and I bought it for a very small price. And it's now the largest winery on the East Coast. It's now called Trump wine and champagne and everything. And my son Eric Trump runs it, and it's become fantastic. It's so beautiful. And people are getting married. We took some of the... he had a car collection where he had these massive buildings, and I turned them into ballrooms, and people are getting married there. It's right next to the University of Virginia, right next to the home of Thomas Jefferson. It touches the property. And it's a great area, really a beautiful area. And we're very proud of it. And the winery is beautiful. I mean, they built a magnificent winery, but they never... you know, sad, they never really got to use it.

Well, I think we had the best concept. And I had one of the great financial statements. I mean, they want to make sure it gets built. And that's been going on. And I have to say, and I don't know if Dan Tangherlini is here, somebody said he may be here. Is he here by any chance? Somebody said he was here. Head of GSA. He's the head of the GSA. I have to tell you that the GSA was so professional. Now, maybe if I didn't get it, I wouldn't say this, but I would say it anyway. The people in the GSA were so... I go around talking about it. You know, people in government, some of them are phenomenal people. I mean, they're phenomenal people. And these people were very professional. Now, this was a job, it was an RFP, request for proposal. And it was really about concept almost more importantly than price. They want to make sure a lot of jobs would be provided, a lot of... so some people had it as an office building, some people had it as... it was the highest, the most sought-after piece of property in the history of the GSA. And we put in a proposal. Our architect is here. And we put up a fantastic proposal to do one of the great hotels of the world, because we had the location, we have the bones. The building is magnificent, the exterior walls. And some people think it's their favorite building in Washington. And it's been a very controversial thing because, as you know, 30 years ago they wanted to rip it down and people were marching in the streets to stop it. Anyway, they chose us because of the fact that I was able to easily get it done, we have a great statement, and because we have a great track record. And importantly, because the concept of the hotel puts more people to work than any other concept.

We're going to have 300 rooms. We're going to have the largest luxury ballroom in the entire tri-state area. We're going to have... it's going to be a magnificent ball. We're going to have many meeting rooms, spas. It's really a big project. We'll be spending over $200 million on the renovation. And you know, I had a choice today when I arrived. I arrived a couple of minutes early, and I said, 'You know, do I go over to the building? It's under demolition right now, and massive, we have over a thousand people working in the building. Do I go over to the building and get dusty, my shoes everything dusty? Or do I sit around in a corner somewhere in the hotel here and wait for David and say, 'Okay Dave, I'm ready in two hours'?' So I said, 'You know what, I'm going to go to the hotel, because that's what an entrepreneur has to do.' We can't... so my shoes are a little dusty, but that's okay. So is my suit. But these are minor details. But I'm very proud of it. It's going to be one of the great hotels. And you know, I shouldn't say this, and certainly we're in a very nice hotel, but Washington doesn't have the great luxury hotel that it should have. And everybody knows that. And this will be one of the great hotels. The hotel I have in Chicago was rated the best hotel in North America by Condé Nast Traveler. I think that this hotel will be better. I think this will be one of the great hotels of the world. And that's going to be ultimately a great thing for Washington. And that's why they chose us, the GSA.

Yes, but very, very little.

Well, that's a 94-story building. But you know, that was very controversial because I got the approval to put it up. And when I put the letters up, everybody went crazy. Actually, now they love it. But before the letters were up, when they heard 28-foot letters, and you know these are massive, these are letters as big as a ceiling, right on the side of the river, right over the river. And so they said, 'Well, you know, this is terrible. We're going to pass a law that nobody ever can do it again. Never can anybody do what Trump did again.' And I said, 'I agree 100% with that law.' So they just, by the way, the law just passed it. I'm very happy about it. I agree.

Well, you know, it's such a great question. And somehow, I hope I'll be here in 10 years saying the same thing with you, because you have great children. And I know your daughter, and she's so amazing. And you know, it's very complicated. I get that question so much because people see Ivanka and they see Don, and they're just doing well. And from the time they were... and I tell this to everybody: from the time they were two years old, old enough to think and old enough to speak, I would say, 'Listen, no drugs, no alcohol, no cigarettes. I don't want drugs.' They didn't even know what it was. And I'd say it. And then they'd be 15, and I'd say, 'No drugs, no alcohol, no...' because I've seen people like you, like me, very substantial people, where they have children and they become alcoholics, they become drug addicts, they become other things. I mean, I add the cigarettes because if you can stay away from cigarettes, it's good. I don't smoke, I have no intention of smoking. But I have people, friends of mine, they're very strong, they smoke, they can't stop. They can't stop drinking. I went to the Wharton School. I had a friend who hated the taste of scotch, hated it. But he tried to develop a taste for scotch. And I saw him recently, he's a total alcoholic. He developed a taste for scotch. And all he had to do was stay away from it. So I say, 'No drugs, no alcohol, no cigarettes,' because I've seen many, many people that are very smart and very successful that have children that are very, very smart, as smart as you're going to find, children that can go to Harvard, Yale, Wharton, any of the schools. But they're addicted to drugs or alcohol. And again, I throw the cigarettes in for health. I also say, 'No tattoos,' by the way. But that seems to be failing, if you look at television. I think the tattoo thing, I'm going to have to just stop. But I was always very strong on that, because you're put at such a tremendous disadvantage as a child that you're never going to make it. You know how competitive it is. And you see it because you hire all these young geniuses. If somebody's a drinker, if somebody's on drugs, it's not going to work. And I just say you just can't do that. So I tell all my friends, you got to just drum it into their heads, no matter what you do.

Well, you know, interesting about real estate, a little bit like that in your business but not as much, that everybody in real estate is old. They never retire. You ever noticed? They don't retire. You see these guys are 89 years old, 'I'm going to fix...' They really do it instead of plastic surgery. It's true. They fix buildings. Like I can fix the old post office instead of getting a facelift, you know? Because I can make that post office so beautiful, and that's my baby, and that's me. But real estate people don't retire. Now, other businesses, they retire. I have friends... my father used to have an expression: 'To retire is to expire.' Which is a tough expression, but I've seen it. A banker, a big banker, tremendously powerful banker, friend of mine, he had to retire at 65 a number of years ago. And he was a vibrant guy, great guy, you would know him, a great guy. And very powerful. He could approve a $500 million mortgage alone without even going to committee. That's not bad, okay? And he was forced to retire at 65. And I saw that man get old within a period of one year. It was the most incredible thing. And I also saw him say to me, 'Oh well, when I retire, I have so many friends.' I say, 'You have me as a friend, but you're not going to have a lot of people as a friend, because a lot of people aren't going to call you back. And they all call you back right now, but they're not going to call you back.' And he came to me about three weeks ago, he said, 'You know, you're the only one that calls me back and talks to me.' He said, 'All those other guys, New York developers mostly, I call them, they don't return my calls. They used to return my call before I made it, and they don't return my call.' But that's life. I mean, that's a sad thing, but that's life.

I love it. I love doing it. I mean, I love doing that more than running and getting abused by Chris Matthews. Hello, how are you? Mrs. Matthews is in the audience, and I love her husband actually. He's always been a friend, but boy did he turn liberal over the last 10 years. It's incredible. So you know, he interviewed me years ago, he wasn't that way. But that's okay.

And you know, I was going to say before that it was a little bit by osmosis. It just came. I did Trump Tower, then I did another building. I did really well with it. I would get higher rents and higher numbers than other people. And all of a sudden, I started building these Trumps all over the place. And the brand became very valuable.

I don't know. That could be the hardest question of the evening. I mean, people just seem to be... well, it is mine. It is legitimately my hair. I get abused. I had a story recently, it was the best story, one of the best stories I've ever had. But in the second paragraph, he said, 'But he wears the worst hairpiece of any human being I've ever...' and it's my hair. So I can't even show the story in a way. You know, it's an embarrassing story, but it was a good story, a financial story. No, it's my hair. For some reason, I've always combed it the same way more or less. And I do get abused about the hair. But I've actually become somewhat immune to it. You know, it's funny: when you know it's yours, if it wasn't mine, I think it would be harder. But when you know it's yours, it's okay. It may not be beautiful, it may not be pretty, but it is mine.

Well, I think a lot of things are happening. You know, I love the fact that oil is dropping, but a lot of people don't. I mean, I've always said that oil should never be up at those levels. It was a fixed level. And it's interesting where I see that they say Saudi Arabia is purposely keeping the price down to destroy... they're not. Look, you do business with Saudi Arabia, I know that. And a lot... and so do I. I have a lot of friends, and they buy a lot of real estate, a lot of apartments, and this and that. But they have space in buildings that I own. But I don't really believe that. But there's a theory that they're keeping the price low to destroy all of these new people with fracking that are becoming... you know, that are coming out with all... who knows, who knows what it is. I love low oil prices. But a lot of people are saying it's low not for that reason. It's low because there's no demand, because China is weak, and because this one's weak, that one's weak, everything's weak. Obviously, Russia is getting killed right now with so many things going on, and they're so strongly based with oil. So a lot of bad things could be happening. Look, the unemployment rate is not 5.8 or 5.3 or 6.7 or 7.9. The real rate's probably 20%, because people stop looking for jobs and they consider them employed. You stop looking for a job... there are so many people out there that gave up looking for jobs, or they're part-time, or there's something else. But the fact is that I think your economy is obviously not doing so well. Now, the stock market is the one ray of hope. So I've never been a stock market person. But about three years ago, two and a half years ago, I bought a tremendous amount of stock, first time ever. I was never... you know, I never believed in letting other people run my money. And I see some of these guys making tremendous amounts of money to run some company that's frankly easy to run. And I always... I never liked it. But anyway, I bought stock. And the reason I bought stock, I said, because it's free money. You're getting free money. Interest rates are so low. And also, in my CDs, they were offering me one quarter of one percent. So I said, 'What do I have to lose?' It's almost like ridiculous. So I bought a lot of stock, and the stocks have gone up tremendously. I feel like such a genius every day: up, up, up. And I sold my stocks a few months ago, everything. Because I'm not a great believer in the leadership of the country, and I'm not a great believer in decisions that are being made with respect to the country. And usually that would lead somebody that's intelligent to go and do something. So I sold all of the stock that I bought. But I sort of like... you know, I'm not a stock market guy, but I made... but the reason I did it was because the interest rates were so low. At some point, those rates are going to go very high, and that's going to be a pretty difficult time, I think, for the country.

Well, I probably do have that issue. I mean, I think a lot about different things. And you know, Alan Greenberg, who I know... Ace, you were friendly with him. And he was a great guy. And he used to buy stocks a little bit for me early in the process. And you know, when I did it in a very small way. And one time, and I never heard this before, I bought a stock, it went up a lot, and I sold it. And a week later, somebody announced that it was going to be bought, and I would have made double the money if I would have kept it. Right? I called Ace. I said, 'We did the horrible thing. What did we do? I sold that stock. I should have kept it another week. I would have looked...' He said, it's the first time he ever got angry at me. He said, 'Never, ever talk about a deal that's been made. Cross that deal off your head.' Because he's a trader, he's a great trader. And he said, 'Never, ever talk. Don't even think about it.' And he said it with anger. And he's never been angry at me before. But it was sort of a lesson I learned. No, I'm very happy I sold the stocks. They've gone up a little bit since, but now they're sort of having some pretty bad times the last week or so. It'll be interesting to see what happens. But I like to run. I like to be invested in things that I run. I have confidence in myself, and I like to be invested in things that I run. I don't run these companies. And I see too many people that do that. I know, and in your case, I have tremendous respect for this man. But in a lot of cases, I don't have great respect for the people running some of these companies.

Well, I have to be very careful with that answer. That can get me into a lot of trouble. But I will say that I have had a good time in my life. I have a wonderful family. I have a wonderful wife. I have my children, they've been great. I think the best part is that I just love what I do. I really enjoy what I do. I think the hardest part is the fact that I can't go anywhere. I used to like, in the real estate business, I could walk the streets of Manhattan and I could see something, and I could see signs that something was for sale. And I can't do that anymore. Now, a lot of that started with The Art of the Deal, when that became the number one book. And then it went to The Apprentice even more so, when The Apprentice became so successful. But I can't... it's very hard to do that now. But I will tell you, I just have a great time with my life. I have a lot of incredible friends, including you. And it was a great honor to be asked by you. And I don't know how many people know this, but you are one of the truly great men and great success stories. And it's an honor to be up here with you.

Wow. The first map of the District of Columbia. I'm a motto of it. Thank you. Thank you.