After Donald Trump’s disaster of a debate performance last week, you’d think he’d be happy to get any sort of positive press at all. But according to multiple people citing sources close to the campaign—Donald Trump is furious at being outperformed by Mike Pence.
Given everything we know about Trump, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that an impulsive, insecure, and emotionally stunted narcissist would be livid that people think more highly of his supposed number two. And this certainly wouldn’t be Trump’s first attention-deprived tantrum.
The controversial 1993 Trump biography Lost Tycoon painted a stark picture of Trump’s tendency to get jealous to the point of self-sabotage. In the late ‘80s, Trump put his wife, Ivana, in charge of Trump’s Castle, one of his Atlantic City casinos. And unfortunately for Trump, Ivana was a hit:
“He hated it when Ivana grabbed the spotlight,” recalled a former Trump’s Castle executive. “He tried to mold her in the his own image, and she tried to please him. When he saw what she was becoming—a real rival to him—he didn’t like it.”
Later, when Trump’s Castle fell a few spots in the Atlantic City casino rankings, Trump supposedly didn’t waste any time tearing his wife down to size:
The Donald blamed the Castle’s slump on Ivana. He now began castigating her in front of the casino’s vice-presidents and managers as if she were one of the lowliest of the hired help.
“Without me, you’re nothing!” The Donald Ranted. “You’re doing a shitty job down here. If you don’t get your act together, you’re gone!”
Author Harry Hurt wrote that “while The Donald ostensibly had an equal stake in the success of both his Atlantic City casinos, he clearly intended to make the Plaza his flagship operation.” Even if that meant sabotaging himself in the process.
And there’s no reason Mike Pence showing Trump up tonight should be any different. After all, this campaign is the Donald Trump show. If Donald Trump can’t win, he’ll be damned if he doesn’t take every last person down with him.
