, Columnist
Trump’s Final Scene Didn’t Go According to Script
The former president saw himself as the executive producer of his own presidency, and he wanted to make a more heroic exit.
Anger issues.
Photographer: MANDEL NGAN/AFPOnce upon a time, long before Donald Trump began fabricating narratives about his prowess and personal history, he wanted to be a movie producer. He admired old-school Hollywood producers such as Darryl F. Zanuck and Cecil B. DeMille, and considered attending film school at the University of Southern California.
Trump’s father marched him into the family real estate business instead. But Trump never lost his fascination with showmanship or his fixation with occupying center stage. What he decided to do, he later told me, was to “put show business into real estate.”