Page 172 - Trump Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges into Success

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W HEN Y OU ’ RE A TT ACKED , B ITE B ACK

dial and open with him, giving him interviews, and having him
travel with me on my jet so I could give him the time he needed.
I extended every courtesy to him, especially that of time.
Then his book, Trump Nation, came out, and I realized
there’s a difference between bad news and evil. This guy was
despicable. His intent was defamation. I’m not sure what he was
writing about, because what he wrote is so far from the truth,
but I do know what he was writing for: attention and money.
This isn’t the proper way to do that.
He had outright lies in his book, and he intended to damage
me personally and my businesses. His reporting was reprehensi-
ble, and as a writer he is not very talented. I decided not to look
the other way and toss it off as jealousy, malice, or greed.
Instead, I sued him and the publisher for a lot of money. The
writer got the attention he was obviously looking for, but his
publisher got something they weren’t looking for. They obvi-
ously didn’t know they were dealing with a guy who would even-
tually write Never Give Up—and actually mean it. The
publisher’s conduct was not much better than O’Brien’s, and
they will have to bear the consequences.
There are all types in the world. I’ve known some terrific
writers and journalists who are honest and dedicated to their
profession. Even though this guy wrote badly about me in the
past as a New York Times reporter, I like to give people the bene-
fit of the doubt, or at least a chance. In this case, I was giving
him a second chance, in fact more than a second chance, consid-
ering the negative articles he’d already written about me. So
take this as a warning—they are going to pay a big price.
For example, this writer purposely and knowingly under-
stated my net worth by billions of dollars. He insisted I was
worth a couple hundred million dollars, at most. Even Forbes
acknowledges I’m worth much more, $2.7 billion being their
conservative valuation. This writer had access to all the facts,
but chose to ignore them. Instead of relying on those facts, he

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