BY MARY REINHOLZ | Liberal Tony Schwartz, ghostwriter for Donald Trump’s book “The Art of the Deal,” continues to issue mea culpas for penning the 1987 bestseller. He calls it a form of fiction that led in part to the Manhattan mogul becoming the Republican presidential candidate in 2016.
“I put lipstick on a pig,” Schwartz, 62, explained to journalist Jane Mayer of The New Yorker in an article in the magazine’s July 25 issue. “I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is.” He added, “I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes, there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.”
Schwartz, a former freelance journalist, spent 18 months interviewing Trump and eavesdropping on his telephone conversations at Trump Tower back in the 1980s. He now runs a consulting business called The Energy Project in Riverdale. He admitted to this writer that he has “betrayed the trust of Donald Trump” because he considers him a dangerous candidate.
Trump reportedly did not require that Schwartz sign a nondisclosure agreement when he became a credited co-author of “Deal” with his name on the book’s cover. Schwartz’s interview with Mayer brought him appearances on “Good Morning America” and other online outlets in which he characterized Trump as a self-aggrandizing empty suit, “a black hole” in need of constant attention. He claims Trump is afflicted with an attention deficit disorder.
Trump’s chief counsel Jason D. Greenblatt wasted no time sending Schwartz a letter demanding that he “cease and desist” his searing commentary against his client. The letter also demanded that Schwartz send Greenblatt a “certified check,” returning his advance and the royalties he had earned on the book, according to the New York Times.
In turn, Schwartz’s lawyer Elizabeth McNamara, fired back a letter stating that Greenblatt had failed to identify “a single statement by Mr. Schwartz that is factually false, let alone defamatory.”
Mayer made it plain in her New Yorker article that Schwartz earned a mint in royalties and knew he was making a “Faustian bargain” with Trump for ghosting “The Art of the Deal” at a time when he needed money. (His wife was pregnant with their second daughter.) She wrote that Schwartz agreed to take the job if Trump would give him half of the advance of $500,000 from the publisher and half of all the royalties on the book.
“The Deal” received favorable reviews from top newspapers and stayed on The Times’s bestseller list for 48 weeks, 13 of them at No. 1. More than a million copies have been sold, generating several million dollars in royalties, according to Mayer.
Schwartz’s public breast-beating for “selling out” drew heated commentary on a Facebook thread started by liberal author Lucian K. Truscott IV, a longtime contributor to The Village Voice. Some of Truscott’s FB friends applauded Schwartz’s “heroic” stand against the litigious Trump and insisted he had nothing to apologize for. But others lambasted him for writing Trump’s book for filthy lucre in the first place and for not speaking out against him sooner.
“After years of reporting, I find the deal he made despicable,” posted Myra MacPherson, an esteemed veteran journalist and former Washington Post writer, on Truscott’s thread. In capital letters, she said of Schwartz: “HE KNEW HE WAS CREATING A MONSTER JUST TO MAKE MONEY. So where was he all these years of Trump lies, years of lost jobs because of T’s bankruptcies and a difference Schwartz could have made at the VERY BEGINNING OF THIS TERRIBLE Campaign… .”
Schwartz responds humbly to the criticism, saying he has spent years trying to redeem himself. Schwartz also noted that he didn’t come forward earlier “because I didn’t believe Trump had a chance to win, and because I certainly would have preferred not to have had him come after me. I am all in now, sharing what I know with as many people as are willing to listen and I will speak out every day until the November 3 [election].”
As for Truscott, he staunchly defended Schwartz’s actions, saying he is an old friend whose ghosting for Trump long ago reflects the perils of freelance writing.
“Anyone out there who doesn’t remember what it was like to be a so-called freelancer and have a family to support, shut the f— up,” he wrote. “We should all be thankful that Tony is around today to report on the s— he went through with Trump so we didn’t have to. Good on you pal. You want a place to hide out, you know where to find me.”
