This is how Trump handled news coverage in the past that revealed what he didn’t want known: Trump poured a glassful of red wine spitefully down the back of reporter Marie Brenner in 1991, at a charity dinner in NY — because of a story she wrote, and what she disclosed about him. He even bragged about pouring wine on her, too. What had Brenner revealed in Vanity Fair? The news disclosed by first wife Ivana — as told to her divorce lawyer — that her husband kept close a book of Hitler’s, My New Order, containing Hitler’s compiled speeches, near his bedside.
In his own book The Art of the Comeback, Trump complained that Brenner's story was, "in fact, one of the worst ever written about me," taking care to describe Brenner as an "unattractive reporter."
The story in Vanity Fair by Marie Brenner, published Sept 1, 1990, “After the Gold Rush,” was re-published online in 2015 when Trump declared his candidacy for President. Brenner asked Trump about the book, and he gave a half denial.
“If I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them." — Trump, to Brenner
The full dialog between them follows, further below.
by Stephanie Eckardt
November 14, 2017
... Brenner finally got to respond in 2015, when the Daily Beast asked her about the incident; she cleared up that it was a glass and not a bottle of wine, which is what New York magazine had reported after Trump boasted about it to their reporter.....
...[Tina Brown:] "She was sitting demurely in her black dinner suit at the Parks Commissioner Betsy Gotbaum’s table when she felt something cold and wet running down her back," Brown writes of the journalist Marie Brenner, who not so coincidentally had written a less than flattering profile of Trump and his then-wife Ivana in Vanity Fair the year before—which included mention of the fact that, according to Ivana, Donald kept a book of Adolf Hitler's collected speeches, My New Order, in a cabinet by his bed, which he would read "from time to time."....
From the Vanity Fair article, 1990 —
“Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler's collected speeches, My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. Kennedy now guards a copy of My New Order in a closet at his office, as if it were a grenade.
“Hitler's speeches, from his earliest days up through the Phony War of 1939, reveal his extraordinary ability as a master propagandist.”
[Diarist’s note — I wasn’t familiar with the phase that reporters of the day dubbed the “phony war” (Oct ‘39- Mar ‘40) because the Allies failed to launch a serious land operation response to the conquest of Poland in Sep. 1939. Now I know.]
Trump’s half-denial, in 1990, about having the book makes it all the more likely it is so. See his deliberate evasion about it, below. If you’re looking for an oratory inspiration to the racial hatred and the vile crowd incitement that Trump uses relentlessly, this is a key part of it.
Now remember, this was reported 25 years before his run in 2015-16 for president — so the profile is not politically motivated.
The book of propaganda, racial and nationalist division, and grievance speeches created by Hitler, My New Order, was given to Trump by his friend Marty Davis, the chairman of Paramount (and Davis also confirmed it to the article’s author, see below).
Here is the back-and-forth about it in the 1990 VF profile between Donald and Marie Brenner:
"Did your cousin John give you the Hitler speeches?"
I asked Trump.
Trump hesitated. "Who told you that?"
Brenner did not tell him the source, that it was through Ivana’s divorce lawyer, Michael Kennedy (or Ivana herself).
"I don't remember," I said.
"Actually, it was my friend Marty Davis from Paramount who gave me a copy of Mein Kampf, and he's a Jew."
Brenner reached Paramount’s Marty Davis to check.
"I did give him a book about Hitler," Marty Davis said. "But it was My New Order, Hitler's speeches, not Mein Kampf. I thought he would find it interesting.
“I am his friend, but I'm not Jewish."
Later, Trump returned to this subject. "If I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them."
So it adds just one more twist that Trump thought if he pretended Davis was a Jew it would somehow put a better sheen on it. The Vanity Fair article is titled, “After the Gold Rush” and it is available online.
This is one more very chilling clue to the psyche of the man who scooped the electoral vote to inhabit the White House.
A demagogue propagandist who is inciting grievance, hatred of minorities, and fear in every speech of his at every rally.