Trump declined yesterday to be interviewed. His assistant, Norma Foederer, said that she had not read the book but understood that it was filled with mistakes and that the public would be well advised to ignore it.
O'Donnell's account is the first open criticism of Trump by a former executive of his casinos. Departing Trump associates have often signed pledges of confidentiality as a condition of substantial severance pay. O'Donnell, whose father founded Bally Manufacturing, the slot machine, casino and pinball giant, did not sign a confidentiality agreement.
O'Donnell is now president of Merv Griffin's Resorts Casino Hotel here. He
quit in anger in April 1990 after Trump publicly criticized O'Donnell's patron, Stephen Hyde, who ran Trump's Atlantic City operations until being killed in a helicopter crash in October 1989.
Trumped! portrays Trump as a vulgarity-spewing dilletante who revels in seeing his bodyguards push people out of his way and is so disdainful of customers that he compulsively washes his hands after shaking their hands.
Trump has never understood, O'Donnell contends, that when players lose big, a major task of casinos is to salve their egos so they will come back in hopes of winning next time. When big losers sought to salve their wounds with Trump by asking for rides on his personal Boeing 727, O'Donnell writes, Trump refused, saying he did not want "slobs" urinating on the plane's toilet seat.
Once, O'Donnell wrote, at a high-roller party, Trump asked a player how he had fared and the conversation went this way:
"Eh, not so good," the customer said. "I dropped $250,000."
"Great . . . oh, that's great," Trump said.
The book's description of remarks by Trump about black people could be significant if proven accurate because Steven P. Perskie, the casino
commission chairman, has ordered proceedings to ban a high-roller from the gambling halls for making similar remarks.
O'Donnell described a dinner conversation with Trump in which, he writes, they discussed Trump Plaza's financial executive, who was black. He quoted Trump as saying he never liked the man and believed he was not doing a good job. Trump's conversation is recounted:
"And isn't it funny. I've got black accountants at Trump Castle and Trump Plaza. Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day. . . . I think the guy is lazy. And it's probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that. It's not anything they can control."
O'Donnell writes that he advised Trump against publicly espousing such views.
"Yeah, you're right," he quotes Trump as telling him. "If anybody ever heard me say that . . . I'd be in a lot of trouble. But I have to tell you, that's the way I feel."
For support of many of his accounts, O'Donnell cites the late Stephen Hyde.
The book was criticized by Al Glasgow, a key Trump adviser, who said it falsely accuses him of breaking the law by doing business with Trump without the required license.
Glasgow said he would have shown his license to O'Donnell or co-author James Rutherford had they asked to see it. O'Donnell expressed surprise when advised that Glasco Associates has a license. O'Donnell acknowledged that he never tried to contact Glasgow before making the charge.