The making of Donald Trump

Indisputably, he is the most talked about Head-of-State right now almost anywhere across the globe, so when i first spotted the book on the making of Donald Trump at Lahore airport's bookshop the mind was fixed, it had to be bought.
Followed by a revealing introduction the "The making of Donald Trump" is complemented with 24 chapters -- digging deeper into the past of the world's most powerful man right now. From his open and clandestine affairs with numerable women and celebrities to wheeler-dealer business dealings; from his real estate scheming of golfing business and setting-up of a fake university to casino business to imaginary friends and myth making -- the book reveals one of the most cleverest , deceitful  and yet the luckiest businessman of all times.
It is, however, the in-depth investigative reporting coupled with suspenseful narrative of the author David Gay Johnston that glues the reader to the book. Fascinatingly, firsthand reporting on Trump goes back for more than three decades. Some chapters even go longer, unearthing his father's tale of emigrating from Germany and setting up his business in America.   
Having gone through the chapters, this reviewer was forced to ask himself, how could there be so many loopholes and incompetence in the American legal system, and also how could the men running the system fall prey to Trump?
Mysterious as it may seem, be it to obtain a business permit, fighting a case or sanctioning of a loan to evading taxes  -- on all counts , Donald Trump has one way or the other managed to get away with his trickery and deception, of course with the help of a long queue of 'friends', 'admirers', lawyers and self-seekers.
For instance, for a reader who before 2016 knew him only as a sketchy figure in the world of real estate, fake wrestling and reality TV shows, the extent of the connivance is shocking. In The Art of the Deal, the book he reportedly wrote in 1987 with Tony Schwartz, Trump claimed to have paid USD 5m in cash for the purchase of Mar-a-Lago, but in a court testimony, author Johnston wrote, he later confirmed that his primary bank, Chase Manhattan, had loaned him the entire purchase price. The transaction had the peculiar legal status of "a non-recorded mortgage". But surely, a mortgage needs a guarantor? Trump said he "personally guaranteed" the loan to himself by Chase Manhattan. The next page tightens the analogy between his practices and those that triggered the 2008 financial collapse: "Many banks," Johnston writes, complained that they were 'unaware other banks had loaned money to Trump on his personal guarantee with no public record of the obligation.' This appears difficult to believe.
Years before he ran for president, Trump was a human complex derivative for sure, but his artistic attributes in making a deal lay somewhere else: he is exceptionally well informed about the weak spots of his business counterparts and the American system in general.
Some of the chapters investigate into Trump's Mob connections. There are also free-standing anecdotes about friends and associates, and a chapter on Trump's bid for the gambling custom of the high-rolling Japanese real-estate investor Akio Kashiwagi. Funniest about Trump is his conventional methods of PR and seeking cheap publicity, after all he likes to be talked about everywhere and all the time. That's what happening since he took office in January this year.
Whatever, in the face of numerable allegations related to mismanagement, corruption and irregularities -- the 45th President of America is perhaps the one person who knows how to get jobs done -- in the crooked way. Barely eight months into the White House and the world has been frequently seeing and feeling his disruptions. Amusingly, his presidency reflects all his personal traits in a queer manner.
The 261 page "Making of Donald Trump" is published by Melville House, but unluckily, like most recent publications, it is not easily available in Dhaka.  A separate photograph section would have added a little more value to the book.

The reviewer is Assistant Editor of The Daily Observer