The Huffington Post:
There's A Movie Donald Trump Doesn't Want You To See. It's About Him.
By Jesse Kornbluth
07/31/2015
Want to see a video about Donald Trump that tells you more than he'd like you to know?You'll notice that the trailer for "Trump: What's the Deal?" mentions that the film was made "some years ago." A quarter of a century later, here it is. What happened?
Our story starts in 1988, in the decade of greed.
Leonard Stern, a New York pet food mogul and real estate developer, decided to finance a series of documentaries about celebrity businessmen. He did a smart thing --for the first documentary, he chose Donald Trump, who was then riding his bestselling book "The Art of the Deal" and beloved by the media.
I was called in to write the piece after the filmmakers shot the footage. It was easy work, because they had remarkable stuff: Donald working with the mob in Atlantic City, intimidating tenants, hiring illegal immigrant labor, verbally assaulting his family and underlings, trying to move a Florida airport because jets flew directly over his home... the list goes on and on.
Perhaps most interesting from a political point of view, the filmmakers revealed Trump to be the opposite of a small-government conservative. He got his start with his father's money and political connections, and he made money the same way his father did: on the backs of taxpayers.
But most upsetting to Trump was the film's revelation that he hadn't made as much money as he said he had. The producers were among the first to show that his financial empire was built on braggadocio... asrecent reports show it to be to this day.
The revelations about Donald never seemed to end. There was so much for the filmmakers to learn about Trump --- his exaggerations, distortions, near-criminal behavior and, most of all, his deepening financial disaster --- that the documentary was three years in the making.
"Trump: What's the Deal?" was never shown on television. Donald Trump went after Leonard Stern --- in a big way. Lawyer's letters. Threats of lawsuits. Personal attacks.
Stern decided he didn't need the trouble and canceled the series. The producers finished the film. But no broadcaster would touch it. Trump had done his work.
Now Trump is the hottest story in American politics, and the producers think it's time for a film that reveals who he really is. As they say: "Old Trump? New Trump? Same Trump."
Get the popcorn. Pour a cold drink. And watch a movie so hot that Donald Trump did everything he could to keep you from seeing it.