‘Art Of The Deal’ Co-Author Shares Grim Warning To Media About A Second Trump Term
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Tony Schwartz is highly concerned about former President Donald Trump regaining power.
The former journalist, who publicly came to regret co-authoring “Trump: The Art of the Deal” (1987), has warned voters in the past about electing Trump for president. Schwartz believes a second term would be far more dangerous, however, and potentially grave.
“I see him as immensely dangerous,” said Schwartz on MSNBC’s “The Ari Melber Show” on Wednesday, “because he will be so much freer to pursue his personal agenda if he’s re-elected — and there is no question about what that agenda is now.”
He argued this agenda means amassing “complete control” of the government, increasing deportations and “to create detention camps” for anyone who opposes Trump. While he doesn’t think he’s first on the “authoritarian” leader’s list, Schwartz is ready to leave the U.S.
“I actually have made the decision, I’ve shared with my friends, that if Trump’s reelected, I’m leaving,” he told Melber. “I’m leaving the United States. Why? Because I don’t feel safe. And anybody who doesn’t believe that they are less safe ... is living a fantasy.”
The former ghostwriter said he’s spent time alone with Trump “dozens of times” in the past and — when asked if he believed Trump would use his second term to persecute journalists, dissenters and political opponents — said there is “absolutely no question.”
Schwartz added, “Trump is going to do what he said he’s going to do.”
The disgraced former president has said a lot during his first term in office. He not only suggested that white supremacists are “very fine people” but smeared reporters as “lying, disgusting people” — and before ominously offering that he “would never kill them.”
Schwartz has spoken about the dangers of a Trump presidency since 2016.
Trump, who is being investigated for his involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, attempting to overturn the 2020 election, stealing classified documents and violating campaign finance laws, has even warned news companies he’d investigate them for treason.
According to a U.S. Press Freedom Tracker database, Trump attacked the news media nearly 1,900 times between the moment he announced his candidacy in 2015 until the end of 2019. Schwartz believes a second term would spawn more than mere threats, however.
“Anybody in the media who’s talked about him in any way that he finds the slightest bit offensive — and he finds all of MSNBC offensive — is at risk,” he told Melber. “This is something that the people who love and support Donald Trump don’t recognize, that they are as vulnerable as everyone else, because Trump … has only one person he’s interested in — himself.”
Trump, who recently announced six names that are on his shortlist for Vice President, was ordered earlier this year to pay more than $80 million for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll. Last week, he was hit with $350 million in damages for fraudulent business practices.
His hush money trial is scheduled to begin in March.
