Newly released video deposition shows Trump in character: winging it

Donald Trump doesn’t prepare for depositions any more, it seems, than he prepares for presidential debates.

“What did you do to prepare for the case today, for the deposition?” he was asked by a lawyer for restaurateur Geoffrey Zakarian, in a videotaped June 16 deposition that was released by a Washington, D.C., judge today.

“I would say virtually nothing,” Trump replies on camera, matter-of-factly.

Did he review any documents? Zakarian’s lawyer wanted to know.

“No, I didn’t,” Trump replies.

In short, Trump was just winging it — just like many believe he’s been doing as a presidential candidate all along.

Trump is restrained and composed throughout the deposition, and there are no explosive exchanges that are likely to impact his candidacy. Still, the videotape is revealing, shedding new light on how Trump conducts his business and, to a lesser extent, his campaign for the presidency.

Trump acknowledges, for example, that despite running a multibillion-dollar real estate empire, he doesn’t take notes, doesn’t use email and doesn’t read leases before he signs them.

He also doesn’t believe he’s said “anything so bad” during his campaign — otherwise how did he ever become the Republican nominee for president?

“I obviously have credibility,” Trump says early on in the deposition, because he ran against 17 people for the GOP nomination, “mostly senators and governors, highly respected people,” and he beat them all.

“So it’s not like, you know, like I’ve said anything that could be so bad. Because If I said something that was so bad, they wouldn’t have had me go through all of these people and win all of these primary races. And I’m pretty even in the polls or close to even in the polls right now.”

The comments that weren’t “so bad” — and have become the central issue in the Zakarian lawsuit — were those that kicked off his presidential campaign last year about the immigrants he said Mexico was “sending” to the United States. “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists,” he said then.

Trump acknowledged that he was essentially winging those as well. Not only did he not write it out before he delivered his speech, he didn’t consult with anybody about what he was going to say.

“With respect to the speech that you made and, specifically, the focus on Mexicans and immigrants, did you write the statement in advance? Was it written?” Zakarian’s lawyer, Deborah Baum, asks him.

“No,” Trump replies.

“And did you plan in advance what you were going to say?”

“Yes.”

“OK. Did you talk to other people about it?”

“No.”

“Did you give any thought to the effect your statement relative to Mexicans and immigrants would have on tenants in your current or future projects?

“No. No, I didn’t. I didn’t at all.”

The deposition came in a lawsuit brought by Trump last year after the restaurateur broke off a deal to open up an eatery in Trump’s new hotel in downtown Washington. Zakarian claimed that the real estate mogul’s comments would damage his brand and hurt his business, justifying his decision to break off a lease he had already signed.

From Trump’s perspective, that’s breach of contract: “He’s got a lease. He’s got to pay his rent,” Trump argues in the deposition.

But the true significance of the deposition is that it may remind voters of just how litigious Trump is. He brought his lawsuit against Zakarian and another one against celebrity chef José Andrés, who also pulled out of a deal to open up a restaurant in the new Trump hotel, after he began his campaign for president.

Motions in both cases, by Trump’s lawyers and his antagonists, to prevail on summary judgment have both recently been dismissed. That means that barring a settlement (and Trump likes to boast that he doesn’t settle lawsuits), both cases are now headed for trial.

And that’s not all. There are also three pending lawsuits against Trump, accusing him of fraud in his running of Trump University, one of them slated to go to trial in federal court before U.S. Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego this Nov. 28, just a few weeks after the presidential election.

Last year, a Florida lawyer who has sued Trump predicted that a Trump presidency could end up being “a litigation circus,” with multiple depositions, trials and courtroom grillings even as the real estate mogul seeks to run the country. The newly released video deposition in the Zakarian case underscores just what a circus it could be.