'Art of the Deal' writer nails Trump's LaVar Ball feud: He is 'half awed and half frightened by black people'

Two biographers of Donald Trump were questioned by CNN's John Berman about the latest tweet storm from the president.

"What is it about Lavar Ball that bothers the president...so much? Is it what he said or as some are alleging, how he looks?" Berman asked.

"Both. First of all, his father is a tall black man and I think Trump is half awed and half frightened by black people and his only way of dealing with them is to attack them," explained Tony Schwartz, who co-wrote "The Art of The Deal" with Trump.

"And, on the other hand, I think he has a zero tolerance for any criticism of any kind, that's why he goes after anybody that says virtually anything about him that's negative," Schwartz explained.

"Awed and afraid of black people. That's a big statement, based on what?" Schwartz asked.

"I watched him. he was unequivocally awed during the many times I saw him with members of the team he owned in the UCFL and when he sponsored prize fights," Schwartz explained. "I think he had this ambivalent relationship where he wished he could have been an athlete like they were."

"And on the other hand, if he felt fear, he always felt aggression and a need to put them down," Schwartz observed.

Michael D'Antonio, the author of "The Truth About Trump" agreed.

"I think what Tony said was correct, that there are these dual motivations on his part. On the one hand it is racial, on the other hand he has very thin skin," D'Antonio responded.

"We have to notice who he responds to, he will go after someone who he can frame perfectly, often for his base," D'Antonio suggested. "So, in this case, this is yet another member of the black community, also someone connected to the world of sports."

"There is this desire I think to find the right person to go after who fits a certain template. He doesn't go after little guys who happen to be white, I've noticed that. He kind of leaves those folks alone," D'Angonio noted. "If he can pick out a target who is different from him and who his base may also resent, that's the person he'll go after.

"What I'm actually struck by about Trump is how aggressively he's moved toward kind of an authoritarian perspective. The biggest fear I have is not whether he tweets about people but it's about whether he moves in the direction of a dictator," Schwartz explained. "Trump I think models himself after Putin and the problem is that we don't have anybody to model ourselves after in this country right now.

"You need people to idealize, you need role models, and you watch what happens to the male psyche right now and the absence of anything that you can idealize and it's troubling and scary on frightening," Schwartz concluded.