A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist asked Donald Trump a personal question 35 years ago that reveals the inner machinations of the "ruthless" real estate mogul-turned-Republican presidential nominee, according to the reporter.
As heard in a newly revealed recording of an 1989 interview at Trump Tower in New York City, Watergate reporter Bob Woodward asked Trump "Who is your best friend?" and received an unusual reply.
"Friendship is a strange thing," Trump replied. "Sometimes you’d like to test people."
Trump made this odd admission to Woodward and reporting partner Carl Bernstein in an impromptu interview he'd pitched the pair on at a dinner party the night before, Woodward revealed.
The then-real estate mogul told Woodward and Bernstein his friends were mostly business connections and his younger brother Robert, whose 2020 obituary includes an anecdote about being publicly shouted down by his big brother.
"Donald faulted Robert, for instance, for the problems with slot machines that plagued the opening of the Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City in 1990," the New York Times obituary stated. "Trump screamed at his brother, putting the blame for the slot machine debacle entirely on him."
Discussing friendship with Woodward and Bernstein one year before this reported meltdown, Trump claimed "everybody" wanted to be his friend for reasons he found obvious, but did not trust.
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“Sometimes you’d like to test them and say one day, just for a period of a week, that Trump blew it," he said. "And then go back and call ’em up and invite ’em to dinner and see whether or not they show up...I’ve often wanted to do that."
Trump explained this would prove whether or not a person was truly loyal, a quality he said he held in high regard.
"I believe in loyalty to people," Trump said. "I believe in having great friends and great enemies. And I’ve seen people who were on top who didn’t stay on top and all of a sudden the same people that were kissing their a-- are gone."
Trump then told the story of a Citibank banker who handled large loans for substantial clients and who'd said he lost friends when he left his high-power position.
"The same people that were my best friends, that were calling me up all the time and kissing my a-- in every way, I can’t even get through to ’em on the telephone anymore," Trump said he was told. "They wouldn’t take his calls anymore.
“I would.”