Trump vs. Trump

“I expect that the one of the first people that he’ll invite to the White House is Megyn Kelly,” Ron Kessler told Hollywood on the Potomac when we sat down with him prior to the South Carolina Republican debate to get his personal take on The Donald. “He’s just a very happy, happy guy. He’s not someone who broods and holds grudges, you know, unless someone really takes him on. A lot of this is for show to get attention.”

Kessler should know. “I first got to know Donald Trump when I did a book on Palm Beach called The Season: Inside Palm Beach and America’s Richest Society in 1999,” Kessler recounted. “I first met him for the research on the book in 1998. I’d been introduced to him through a mutual friend. He called me and chatted for about 20 minutes to get an idea of what I was up to, and to size me up, and then he agreed to fly my wife Pam Kessler and I down to Mar-A-Lago and spend the weekend with him. On the way down on the plane, he imitated the nasal-constricted sounds of the old guard – the WASP Society – that condemned his club at Mar-A-Lago because it admits blacks and Jews. To this day, some clubs in Palm Beach still do not admit blacks and Jews, so I could not be a member. My friend Juan Williams could not be a member. This is just a little peek at what Donald is really like. He’s not prejudice. He’s not a nut. There’s a reason that he’s amassed 10 billion dollars and employs 34,500 people, and that is that he’s very competent and he knows how to brand his properties.”