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The Real Donald Trump Ronald Kessler WASHINGTON -- Norma Foerderer, Donald Trump's top aide for 26 years, says there are two Donalds: the "outrageous" one portrayed on television and the real one only insiders know.
"I mean Donald can be totally outrageous, but outrageous in a wonderful way that gets him coverage," Foerderer told me in the first extensive interview she has given on The Donald. "That persona sells his licensed products and his condominiums. You know Donald's never been shy, and justifiably so, in talking about how wonderful his buildings or his golf clubs are."
The private Donald Trump, on the other hand, is "the dearest, most thoughtful, most loyal, most caring man," Foerderer said. That caring side inspires loyalty and is one of his secrets to success.
In 1998, Trump made Foerderer, who is retiring at the end of the year, a vice president. But the title was irrelevant. Everyone who knew Donald knew that Norma was his right hand. When Jay Leno wanted to invite Trump on his show, he called Foerderer. When Jack Nicholson tried to call Trump, he went through Norma first so she could verify that he was who he claimed to be.
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Foerderer began as Trump's secretary when Donald had only seven other employees. She has been in charge of almost everything from public relations and hiring and firing administrative personnel to negotiating book deals and advertising contracts.
In a Nexis search, nearly 500 articles quote Foerderer as Donald's spokesperson, announcing Trump's marriages, the birth of his children, and the start of his NBC series "The Apprentice." When he married Marla Maples and then Melania Knauss, Foerderer attended the weddings. She made an appearance on "The Apprentice" on April 8, 2004, recommending against finalist Amy Henry, who was quickly fired in favor of Bill Rancic. Indeed, no one knows both the business and personal side of Trump better than Foerderer. Before joining Trump in February 1981, Foerderer had been a junior State Department political officer based in Africa. Later, she jointly owned a company that introduced technology to the Soviet Union. She then joined a non-profit organization, which she quit abruptly after her boss yelled at her over a typographical error she did not catch.
Out of a job, she saw a classified ad in The New York Times for a secretary. It turned out that the ad had been placed by Ivana Trump, who first interviewed her. After Foerderer passed that test, Donald interviewed her one Saturday morning.
Having operated his business out of his limousine for some time, Trump had just opened an office on Fifth Avenue across from the building site of the Trump Tower, where he now has his corporate office and his $50 million three-story apartment. He had just made an audacious proposal to transform the crumbling Commodore Hotel into the Grand Hyatt New York hotel on 42nd Street at Grand Central Station, obtaining a $120 million tax break from the city in the process.
"I didn't even know who Donald Trump was because I'd been out of the country so long," Foerderer said. "I'll never forget it because I had to drive in from New Jersey, where I lived. There was Donald, in the office, perched on the reception desk, which we still have; you know that rounded one, with his coat slung over his shoulder in a cape fashion and wearing a tie. And so there he was, swinging his leg. I arrived on the stroke of 9. He said, ‘I'm glad to see you're on time.' Punctuality has always been a big thing with him."
After interviewing her for two minutes, Trump hired her. Foerderer thought Ivana, who dubbed her husband The Donald, was more interested in Donald's hiring a secretary than he was. In fact, Foerderer found that Donald had no files. He kept everything in his head. His lawyer kept copies of contracts.
Foerderer considered it a way to make money while looking for a real job.
"I was a snob, because I felt I was capable of so much more. I thought, ‘What am I doing here?'" she said. "Of course, he didn't do things in an orthodox manner as they did in the State Department. He didn't follow protocol. I thought, this Mr. Trump is a 32-year-old whippersnapper. I needed the money; I needed a job; and that was kind of the first thing that came along."
Within a month, Trump increased her salary from $18,000 to $26,000 a year and began broadening her responsibilities. Allen Weisselberg, currently Donald's chief financial officer, is the only employee who has worked for Donald longer than Foerderer, but he was then based in Brooklyn rather than in the corporate office. Meanwhile, having previously been shunned by other developers, 42nd Street became a gold mine as its renaissance began.
Trump now has 15,000 employees. According to Forbes magazine, he is worth $2.9 billion.
"Donald is such a man of vision," Foerderer said. "He allows you to do whatever you want. Soon, I was doing all the purchasing. I did all the human resources. I screened his mail, I looked for special projects, did the preliminary research on them, and then would give him the results so other staff members could investigate further. I arranged special events and press conferences; I did his PR. It was the kind of job that just grew because I was there and available."
Somehow, Foerderer said, "Donald instills in you the desire to do more and more and more, and you want to please him," she said. "And yet he rarely criticizes. I mean, he would if you did something stupid. He allows you to expand; if you come in with an idea, he'll say, ‘Fine; run with it and see what you do.' This motivates and challenges you even more, and you want to please him because you admire him so much."
Donald taught Foerderer how to negotiate.
"He'd say, ‘Norma's a good negotiator.' Well, I learned from the master," she said. "I got him really wonderful deals for commercials. What did I do? I would sit tight and say, ‘I want a million.' They'd say, ‘Start lower.' My response would be, ‘Look, you're getting Donald Trump, and there's only one of him. I can't recommend a lower price for him. You're getting a bargain.' I'd just talk and talk and talk, and joke with them. And before you know it, bingo. I'd be just as surprised as anybody else that it happened. But I just knew that I had to persevere the way he does."
Foerderer acted as Donald's spokesperson for the first time in May 1984 when a man committed suicide by vaulting a third floor brass railing. He fell to his death on the marble floor of the Trump Tower atrium.
"He did it before any security guards could even get near him," The Associated Press quoted her as saying. Fortunately, her job since then has not been as somber or disturbing.
While Foerderer has been the gatekeeper, Trump is his own PR person. As an example, for my book "The Season: Inside Palm Beach and America's Richest Society," Donald took me and my wife Pam on his Boeing 727-100 from New York to Palm Beach, where we spent the weekend with him at his Mar-a-Lago estate and club. Before agreeing to cooperate on the book, he had chatted with me for 20 minutes by phone, sizing me up.
Trump is also his own lawyer and architect.
"I've sat in on meetings with lawyers where he introduces ideas to them that have merit," Foerderer said. "I've seen him work with architects where he does the very same thing. He'll take that big magic marker and slash it here or there and change and create rooms. It works. Everybody stands around like dummies because they didn't realize this could be done. He could have been an architect. He probably doesn't have the finesse of a politician, nor the patience; but he has such sound ideas. Politically, he's said things years ago that have come to fruition today in the political system."
In a NewsMax article that appeared on June 23, Trump told me that the U.S. should withdraw from Iraq "as soon as practicable," a view that has since gained momentum.
Donald's commitment to quality has meant that "you can interview a thousand owners, a thousand people who live in his apartments, and they'll all tell you — the amenities, the service, the staff are all fantastic," Foerderer said. "And that's the way he runs something. At the Mar-a-Lago club, it's the same way. Any of his golf clubs, it's the same thing."
Trump's thoughtful side manifested itself when Foerderer began having a problem with her eyes a year ago and had to stay at home. Trump has called her every week and sends her baskets of gourmet food.
When Trump bought Mar-a-Lago, he retained several 70-year-old gardeners who could barely pull weeds but had worked loyally for Marjorie Merriweather Post, who built the estate in 1927. When the air conditioning at the home of Donald's Palm Beach butler Tony Senecal gave out, Trump had it replaced. When Senecal had heart problems, Trump insisted he stay at Mar-a-Lago to recuperate.
Alain Cohen, a Palm Beach antiques dealer, told me that when Trump looked at furniture for Mar-a-Lago at Cohen's warehouse, he gave a $100 tip to the worker who moved the items around for him.
"The man was so overjoyed," Cohen said. "It was half his weekly salary."
On the other hand, Foerderer said, Donald rightly fired Carolyn Kepcher, who had been a star on "The Apprentice."
"You could almost see that coming," Foerderer said. "She started to believe her own hype. She was off promoting herself. There's only one star. He gave them all permission — to Carolyn, to George Ross, to Bill Rancic, and others — to write their books, and that's fine. He wrote the forewords to most of them. However, you have an obligation to do the job you were hired for."
As for Amy Henry, "The Apprentice" finalist, "She would get on my nerves after a while," Foerderer said.
Trump took Norma's advice to heart.
"All my executives said that there's little substance behind your words," Trump told a visibly shaken Amy on the NBC show.
Back in 1990, Donald was $300 million in the hole, according to a report by his accountants. He had to restructure bank loans and sell his yacht, the Trump Princess, formerly owned by Adnan Khashoggi. But he immediately began designing a new yacht.
"This is what kept him going, I believe, because he had the plans, a vision, and a final goal," Foerderer said. "He would work on the plans, and people would come to see him, and this went on over a period of time, and he just kept on plugging away. He worked on that and several other projects that couldn't take off right then. Within a year or so, there was a major turnaround in real estate, and he was off and running again."
Trump considers yachts too slow for his lifestyle and never built a new one.
On the rare occasions when Donald suffers a setback, he plays a round of golf. He sleeps only three or four hours a night.
While Mar-a-Lago serves club members a Sunday brunch that ranges from caviar and smoked salmon to cocktail shrimp and crab claws, Donald is likely to be seen eating roast turkey, which he had for Thanksgiving at Mar-a-Lago. His favorite dish is meat loaf, which appears on Mar-a-Lago's otherwise fancy menu.
Donald enjoys watching sports on TV and going to the movies. He exercises by playing golf and tennis.
"He is very sports savvy. He knows about every baseball player, football player, tennis player, back to the year one, and every score," Foerderer said. But mostly, Donald enjoys working. He arrives at his office on the 26th floor of Trump Tower at 8:00 or 8:30 a.m. Rhona Graff, who has appeared on "The Apprentice," and two other assistants field his calls.
"By the time he comes into the office in the morning, he has read every newspaper — The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the New York Post, and the Daily News. I haven't even read a newspaper yet [on any given occasion], and he would comment on the news of the day, the stock prices, the editorials, the business pages, and what the gossip columnists are saying."
Donald prefers, for the most part, that business associates eat lunch with him in the office, Foerderer said. "Occasionally, he does go out, and many times he doesn't have lunch at all."
When Foerderer began working for Trump, he had only one child, Don Jr. Now he has five. When one of the kids phones, Trump interrupts conferences to take the call.
The first time Donald met Melania Knauss, whom he married in January 2003, he told Foerderer about her.
"He said he met a beautiful, beautiful, fantastic girl at a party in New York," she said. "He thought she was stunning, and she was a brunette, not a blonde."
In the early stages of their relationship, Melania found out that Donald had seen another woman.
"Women were positively shameless in pursuing Donald — but not Melania," Foerderer said. "To see these women throw themselves at him . . . no shame."
Melania broke up with him, impressing Donald, who wooed her back.
"She knew who she was," Foerderer said. "And it was a good move on her part. They're just darling together, and they tease and they laugh," Foerderer said. "They are best friends."
Their wedding guests included Rudy Giuliani, Billy Joel, NBC President Bob Wright, CBS President Les Moonves, Katie Couric, Matt Lauer, Deborah Norville, Donna Summer, Barbara Walters, and Mort Zuckerman. But does Trump have any close male friends?
"Regis Philbin is a close friend, and Terry Lundgren, CEO of Federated Department Stores, is a good friend," Foerderer said.
Why did Foerderer click with Donald?
"Because I was completely honest with him," she said. "I'm not a sycophant in any way. As I came to know him, I realized that Donald is a tremendous man, and I admire him enormously, but if I disagree on something, I would be the first to say to him, ‘Donald, I don't think so.'"
In turn, Donald's honesty with people has been a key to his success, Foerderer said.
"He'll say what he feels and believes," she said. "And people appreciate that."
What would Foerderer tell others who want to succeed?
"I would tell them to dream, and to have a vision and a goal," Foerderer said. "Think about what you want to do, love it, and if you love it enough, you'll realize your dreams. That's what Donald's done."
Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of NewsMax.com. Get his dispatches FREE sent you via e-mail. Click here now.
Editor's note:
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