Donald Trump Hired Me As An Attorney. Please Don’t Support Him For President.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-hired-me-as-an-attorneyplease-dont_us_579e52dee4b00e7e269fb30f?

Thomas M. Wells
Attorney and businessman with offices in NJ and Vermont and homes in Vermont , NY and St.Thomas. Active in real estate and non profits.
July 31, 2016

•••••

In 1987, when I was 35 years old and he was 41, Donald Trump hired me to be his attorney on a major northern New Jersey project, a shopping center, which like everything else, was to bear his name, Trump Centre. It was a big deal that he picked me and a high honor for me just a couple of years after I started my law firm, which is now over 30 years old. This was at a time when Trump still built things, having recently finished Trump Tower.

He seemed to me smart, business savvy, decisive. He had a very impressive office, a fancy and very big boat, an airline, a helicopter shuttle and several casinos. Within a few years, virtually all of this would be lost because of bad business decisions.

•••••

Donald Trump was then, as he is now, larger than life, particularly in his own eyes, and at the same time frighteningly small, with very little moral grounding. He was then, and still is, all ego and show.

•••••

I have thought about this a lot, and I want to share my humble insights of why we cannot elect Donald Trump as president of the United States. To me, it is more about character than politics. Because of lack of the former, the latter ― the actual politics of Donald Trump ― are not that easy to discern.

Once I got going with my reasons why Donald would not be good for our country, it was hard to stop. I did stop, however, when I hit 20, about 4,000 words from here. Read on if you are interested.

1. The man lies all the time. ...

2. It is actually not all about the candidate. ...

•••••

His ego seems to know no bounds. When Donald feels insulted by someone, he obsesses without control.

•••••

3. U.S. presidents are by design not kings. ...

•••••

4. The devil IS in the details. ...

5. Words matter. ...

6. Reading is good. So is studying.

Donald Trump recently told us that he does not read much. We know from the recent revelations by Tony Schwartz, his ghost writer on The Art of the Deal (yes, I do have my copy from when it first came out, autographed with Donald telling me to “keep up the great work”), which Donald says is second only to the Bible as the must-read book, that he certainly has not written a book ― at least not that one. ...

7. The new vocabulary we are adjusting to is not a good one. ...

8. We need to be careful with “tough.”

Donald Trump said of a protester at one of his rallies, “in the good old days they would have carried him out on a stretcher.” His world reveres this brand of toughness. This toughness is not about the strength it takes to use restraint or to make really hard decisions. It is about “punching that guy in the face,” or at a minimum, saving face ― his.

I will resist the temptation to belabor the nuclear codes point again, and rather just query do we really want a thin-skinned president who, as he suggested, if a government leader (Castro) was not on the tarmac to meet his plane, “would turn around Air Force One and come home.” ...

9. Success does matter. ...

•••••

Four business bankruptcies (1991, 1992, 2004 and 2009), the Plaza Hotel, Trump Air, all three casinos (a couple times) the steaks, the water, Trump Centre in New Jersey that I worked on, Manhattan’s West Side rail yards (where buildings do bear his name as a consolation), the much-hyped $35,000 get-rich scheme Trump University ― all failures by any measure except of course to Donald, who “has no regrets, whatsoever.”

Then there are basic business ethics: 3,500 lawsuits, the fact that he has penchant for not paying bills fully or on time, or that he calls himself the “King of Debt” ― a king made rich by running up debt, then renegotiating it. Is this the skill set we want for the president?

•••••

10. We could not be the great country we are without the First Amendment, but our media may kill us.

The media is not Donald’s enemy as he keeps announcing from the stage. It may be the enemy of the rest of us, however. It sure feels like it lately. The air time Donald gets, and his ability to phone in his rants (especially with the cable media) is nothing short of, to use one of his words, “disgusting.” ...

11. Temperament, demeanor and character are important.

In many ways, Donald represents the very worst in all of us, or at least many of us. He is all about continuous gratification. He is the petulant child who wants his way. He is the selfish teenager with no big picture yet. He is the spoiled young man of privilege with the “right” race and religion, education, good looks, and family fortune to succeed easily, and who looks down on others lacking in any of the above who do not. ...

12. The emperor and his clothes. ...

13. Sophomoric speech tricks don’t work ― at least not with most of us. ...

14. A thin skin does not work for a president. ...

15. Bullies will always exist somewhere, but the White House should not be that somewhere. ...

16. Law and order. ...

17. Incoherent rants, often contradictory, does not a foreign policy make. ...

18. How will anyone effectively be president if we don’t at least respect the office? ...

19. Rich and powerful guys have to play by the rules, too. ...

20. We must stand for something. ...

•••••

One has to wonder, what does the America of the “real Americans” look like? A bunch of intolerant, hyper aggressive, folks behind a big wall, isolated (not trading with anyone and thus with a sick economy and very expensive goods) and with a lot of enemies. No “Shining City on the Hill,” for sure. Hard to see anything but ruin ahead for such a place.

We can do so much better! For me, better comes easily in the form of former Senator and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. For those who do not come to that conclusion easily (I get it), this year it will have to be the lesser of two evils. No matter what, don’t even think about taking us into the abyss that is Donald Trump.