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Story highlights
- Michael D'Antonio: Donald Trump understated the extent of the help he received from his father and others
- It was far more than the $1 million loan he cited in a New Hampshire appearance, says D'Antonio
Michael D'Antonio is the author of the new book "Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success" (St. Martin's Press). The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.
(CNN)Insisting, "It has not been easy for me" and that "my whole life has been a 'no' and I fought through it," Donald Trump said Monday his father's "small loan" of $1 million got him started as a developer. This version of events, which seems intended to show he is somehow a self-made man, represents a new direction for the candidate and fails to give Trump the elder the credit he deserves.
Michael D'Antonio
Although Trump may have been told "no" on occasion, his early success depended on many important "yesses" that were obtained with his father's ample assistance. Privileged to have a name that opened doors at banks and insurance companies and New York City Hall, Trump also benefited from financial assistance that was worth many times more than $1 million. He and his businesses have also enjoyed public help in the form of tax breaks, loans from his siblings, and protection from bankruptcy courts worth well in excess of $100 million. However it was his father who made sure Donald got a big head start in life.
As Donald Trump began his career in real estate, his father was one of the richest individuals in America, with a net worth of roughly $200 million. (The equivalent today of $1 billion.) The candidate is correct when he says that Fred Trump was never eager to work in Manhattan, but this didn't make him a minor leaguer.
Fred built 15,000 apartments in Brooklyn and Queens, which generated a river of cash that he used to retire debt and invest in new projects. When Donald made his first big deal, to replace the decrepit Commodore Hotel at Grand Central Terminal with a sparkling Hyatt, he depended on his father's good name and his credit with lenders, which was worth tens of millions of dollars, according to Wayne Barrett's 1992 book, "Trump, The Deals and the Downfall."
It was Fred Trump, not Donald, who possessed the political capital -- earned through donations to various candidates -- that impressed trustees who sold Donald development rights at the hotel site. And it was Fred who reassured city officials that, "I'm going to watch the construction and provide the financial credibility."
According to Barrett's book, Donald could not get the money on his own, so Fred guaranteed half the $70 million cost of the project and Hyatt guaranteed the other. Fred was so instrumental in overseeing the project that he attended contract signings and, as was his custom, handed out souvenir silver dollars to those present.
(Evidence of Donald's limited financial strength was revealed in public documents related to his negotiation of a prenuptial agreement with first wife Ivana in the 1970s, according to Harry Hurt III's book, "Lost Tycoon." Although Donald had made public claims of great wealth, his taxable income at the time was less than $2,200 per week. He controlled a small interest in one of his father's many companies and received regular but modest payments from family-related trusts.)
Fred Trump's political credibility was also essential to Donald's first big success. In his book "The Art of the Deal," Donald wrote that "the only way to get financing was if the city gave me a tax abatement." Part corporate welfare and part urban renewal scheme, the tax abatements allowed property owners to pay lower taxes than they would normally pay. Donald's application got lots of attention from city officials, who eventually gave him a $40 million reduction. Without this gift from his father's friends, Donald's first project would never have been started.
Photos: Donald Trump's rise
President-elect Donald Trump has been in the spotlight for years. From developing real estate and producing and starring in TV shows, he became a celebrity long before winning the White House.
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Trump at age 4. He was born in 1946 to Fred and Mary Trump in New York City. His father was a real estate developer.
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Trump, left, in a family photo. He was the second-youngest of five children.
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Trump, center, stands at attention during his senior year at the New York Military Academy in 1964.
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Trump, center, wears a baseball uniform at the New York Military Academy in 1964. After he graduated from the boarding school, he went to college. He started at Fordham University before transferring and later graduating from the Wharton School, the University of Pennsylvania's business school.
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Photos: Donald Trump's rise
Trump stands with Alfred Eisenpreis, New York's economic development administrator, in 1976 while they look at a sketch of a new 1,400-room renovation project of the Commodore Hotel. After graduating college in 1968, Trump worked with his father on developments in Queens and Brooklyn before purchasing or building multiple properties in New York and Atlantic City, New Jersey. Those properties included Trump Tower in New York and Trump Plaza and multiple casinos in Atlantic City.
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Trump attends an event to mark the start of construction of the New York Convention Center in 1979.
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Trump wears a hard hat at the Trump Tower construction site in New York in 1980.
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Trump was married to Ivana Zelnicek Trump from 1977 to 1990, when they divorced. They had three children together: Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric.
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The Trump family, circa 1986.
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Trump uses his personal helicopter to get around New York in 1987.
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Trump stands in the atrium of the Trump Tower.
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Trump attends the opening of his new Atlantic City casino, the Taj Mahal, in 1989.
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Trump signs his second book, "Trump: Surviving at the Top," in 1990. Trump has published at least 16 other books, including "The Art of the Deal" and "The America We Deserve."
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Trump and singer Michael Jackson pose for a photo before traveling to visit Ryan White, a young child with AIDS, in 1990.
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Trump dips his second wife, Marla Maples, after the couple married in a private ceremony in New York in December 1993. The couple divorced in 1999 and had one daughter together, Tiffany.
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Trump putts a golf ball in his New York office in 1998.
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An advertisement for the television show "The Apprentice" hangs at Trump Tower in 2004. The show launched in January of that year. In January 2008, the show returned as "Celebrity Apprentice."
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A 12-inch talking Trump doll is on display at a toy store in New York in September 2004.
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Trump attends a news conference in 2005 that announced the establishment of Trump University. From 2005 until it closed in 2010, Trump University had about 10,000 people sign up for a program that promised success in real estate. Three separate lawsuits -- two class-action suits filed in California and one filed by New York's attorney general -- argued that the program was mired in fraud and deception. Trump's camp rejected the suits' claims as "baseless." And Trump has charged that the New York case against him is politically motivated.
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Trump attends the U.S. Open tennis tournament with his third wife, Melania Knauss-Trump, and their son, Barron, in 2006. Trump and Knauss married in 2005.
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Trump wrestles with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin at WrestleMania in 2007. Trump has close ties with the WWE and its CEO, Vince McMahon.
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For "The Apprentice," Trump was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in January 2007.
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Trump appears on the set of "The Celebrity Apprentice" with two of his children -- Donald Jr. and Ivanka -- in 2009.
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Trump poses with Miss Universe contestants in 2011. Trump had been executive producer of the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants since 1996.
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In 2012, Trump announces his endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
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Trump speaks in Sarasota, Florida, after accepting the Statesman of the Year Award at the Sarasota GOP dinner in August 2012. It was shortly before the Republican National Convention in nearby Tampa.
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Trump appears on stage with singer Nick Jonas and television personality Giuliana Rancic during the 2013 Miss USA pageant.
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In June 2015, during a speech from Trump Tower, Trump announced that he was running for President. He said he would give up "The Apprentice" to run.
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Trump -- flanked by U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio, left, and Ted Cruz -- speaks during a CNN debate in Miami on March 10. Trump dominated the GOP primaries and emerged as the presumptive nominee in May.
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The Trump family poses for a photo in New York in April.
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Trump speaks during a campaign event in Evansville, Indiana, on April 28. After Trump won the Indiana primary, his last two competitors dropped out of the GOP race.
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Trump delivers a speech at the Republican National Convention in July, accepting the party's nomination for President. "I have had a truly great life in business," he said. "But now, my sole and exclusive mission is to go to work for our country -- to go to work for you. It's time to deliver a victory for the American people."
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Trump faces Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the first presidential debate, which took place in Hempstead, New York, in September.
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Trump apologizes in a video, posted to his Twitter account in October, for vulgar and sexually aggressive remarks he made a decade ago regarding women. "I said it, I was wrong and I apologize," Trump said, referring to lewd comments he made during a previously unaired taping of "Access Hollywood." Multiple Republican leaders rescinded their endorsements of Trump after the footage was released.
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Trump walks on stage with his family after he was declared the election winner on November 9. "Ours was not a campaign, but rather, an incredible and great movement," he told his supporters in New York.
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Trump is joined by his family as he is sworn in as President on January 20.
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Having been schooled by his father, Donald also became a friend and donor to politicians. When it came time for him to seek tax breaks for his signature project -- Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue -- he was able to access city officials on his own. This time he was turned down, but he didn't give up. He turned to the courts and eventually prevailed to the tune of $50 million. For a project completed at a cost of roughly $200 million, where apartment sales quickly brought in $277 million, the abatement provided for a windfall.
Given Fred Trump's fortune, and his influence, his son Donald had advantages worth tens of millions of dollars more than the simple $1 million loan he mentioned in New Hampshire. However his father's wealth provided him with even more direct benefit. In the early 1990s, as two of his casinos went bankrupt and his Trump Airlines failed, he went to his siblings for loans totaling $30 million.
As reported in The New York Times, this money allowed Trump to stay in business at a time when he was $900 million in the red. It was lent with the understanding that, if necessary, Donald would repay it from his share of his father's estate. (Fred was alive but affected by the early stages of Alzheimer's dementia at the time.)
Complex as it may seem here, the history of Donald Trump's finances has always been murky. Over the years most of his activities have been carried out in privately held companies, which issue no public accounting reports, and he has always contested estimates appearing in the financial press.
Until now, however, it has been clear that Trump saw no virtue in politicians' claims to humble beginnings. As he explained in his 1999 book "The America We Deserve," these candidates say, in effect, "...their families have been losers for years and years and `Elect me, because I'm a loser.'"
Now, as he says that he only benefited from "a small loan" of $1 million, Trump is signaling that he sees the value in a little humility.
As the child of one of America's wealthiest men, who received an Ivy League education and then entered the property development world at the top, he may have trouble persuading the voting public of this view. However by now he is a man who knows how to get to "yes" on his own.