Page 173 - Trump Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges into Success

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T R UM P: N E V E R G I V E U P

claimed he was relying on anonymous sources to misrepresent
my business. So what I did was to invite Forbes in to investigate,
to go over everything, which they did meticulously, and they
confirmed what they had originally found—that I was worth,
conservatively, $2.7 billion. They published their findings. All
this time and effort put out by the Forbes’ team and my team was
a direct result of Trump Nation’s deliberate reporting errors
designed to damage my reputation and businesses. As of Sep-
tember 2007, Forbes confirmed my worth at $3 billion. That
number is much less than my actual net worth but they were
being very conservative.
By way of comparison, a very respected journalist and writer,
Robert Slater, wrote a book about me—No Such Thing as Over-
Exposure—that turned out wonderfully for everyone. I had
extended to Bob actually less hospitality than I had to Tim
O’Brien, but because Bob is a writer of integrity, the end result
was terrific. Bob has great credentials, having reported for both
Time and Newsweek for many years, and he is one of the world’s
leading business biographers. He also seems to understand that
getting the facts right is part of a journalist’s job.
In any event, I told the publisher I had no interest in settling
without a large payment and a full apology. I do not mind paying
large legal fees as long as the end result will be the truth, which
is something they are avoiding. Many people would say, why
bother? I say, why give up? I do not back down. I don’t need the
money from winning the case—I need to set the record straight
and maybe make it harder for other disreputable writers to knock
people for the fun or profit of it. I told them it was a court case
that I am truly looking forward to, because that’s the truth.

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