Question submitted to the Micosoft AI Copilot on 1/4/2025....
Me: According to the ghost writer of "the art of the deal", he interviewed donald trump a few times, then wrote the book. Given this, couldn't it be categorized as fiction? I don't think it's donald trump's advice on business, it is only presented as such. Yet he seems to take full credit for "writing" it. When his imput was minimal. That's my understanding, at least. I've seen the author talk about it on tv.
Copilot: You're right about Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter of "The Art of the Deal." He has openly discussed how he wrote the book based on a few interviews with Donald Trump and his own observations. Schwartz has expressed regret over his involvement, stating that he took on the project for the money and that he now views the book as "blood money". [1] [2].
Schwartz has also mentioned that he believes the book should be categorized as fiction because it presents an idealized version of Trump that doesn't align with reality [3]. Despite this, Trump has taken full credit for the book and often references it as a testament to his business acumen.
It's an interesting situation where the lines between fact and fiction are blurred, and it raises questions about authorship and the portrayal of public figures.
Video: Nov 4, 2016. Tony Schwartz discusses The Truth About Trump at an Oxford Union Q&A. He has publically renounced "the art of the deal".
Video: Jan 22, 2021. Jennifer Palmieri sits down with the ghostwriter for Trump: The Art of the Deal, Tony Schwartz, to discuss what he feels is going in Trump's mind during the final days of his presidency.
Video:. Jan 13, 2024. Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen. We welcome back to the show, Tony Schwartz. A former columnist for The New York Post, and associate editor at Newsweek, he was also a reporter for The New York Times and a staff writer at New York Magazine and Esquire. In 1985, Schwartz began interviewing Donald Trump to ghostwrite Trump: "The Art of the Deal" for which he was given co-author credit. Art of the Deal was published in 1987; some say it sold Trump to the public as a successful businessman. Today, Tony will help us understand more fully who Trump was back then and who he has become.
At 45 minutes into the first video, Tony Schwartz says, "...when he came down from that escalator to announce his candidacy and he said, you know, "the people streaming in from Mexican from Mexico are rapists" -- that was not spontaneous. He'd been planning that line for a long long time. And he had figured out quite some years earlier that he could stoke the fears and interest of a certain constituency by creating a polarized world and setting up, in this case, Mexicans but subsequently Muslims and blacks and women and, you know, virtually everybody but white men, as the enemy. So I do think that there was a lot of conscious thinking about this.
What's interesting to me, over the last six weeks since Steve Bannon has taken over his campaign... Steve has been, and is a you know, leader of the what's now called the alt-right but you know in the old days would have been called the Ku Klux Klan.
Bill Ayers, the Weather Underground Terrorist and Ghost writer of Obama's "Dreams from My Father", was writing a fiction? Who knew? It's a good thing that Bill simultaneously launched Obama's political career or Barack'd still be a toady for Tom Ayers philanthropic corporate boards in Chicago spreading money around Far Left causes with him.
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame Bill never got co-author credit and missed out on all those royalties!
Deleteps - Bannon ran Trump's campaign from prison? That must have been quite the trick.
Delete"Dreams from my father" wasn't ghost written by anyone. Barack Obama wrote it himself. And the info about Bannon is from 2016, not 2024. Was Steve Bannon in prison in 2016 too?
ReplyDeleteStill debating the 2016 election? Get a life...
DeleteWhy would you post something about the 2016 election? Are you an historian?
DeleteTony Schwarz collects royalties from Trump's book. Poor Bill Ayers has to live off his daddies billions.
DeleteI posted three videos. The date of each is noted. 2016, 2021 and 2024. All feature Tony Schwartz sharing his thoughts about donald trump. That is the subject of this post. And Tony Schwartz gets royalties because he authored "the art of the deal". Bill Ayres get no royalties because he had nothing to do with "Dreams from my father". Barack Obama is the sole author of that book.
ReplyDeleteLOL! And Michelle's latest book was all by her own pen as well...
DeleteNo. She has acknowledged receiving assistance writing her books.
DeleteMe: tony schwartz says he wrote "the art of the deal" and that donald trump allowed him to listen to phone calls while he was making "deals". He wrote none of it. Michelle Obama (I believe) acknowledges using ghost writers to help with her books. Are these people credited in the books? Also, do we have any idea how much of her books Michelle Obama wrote? or were her books written for her, like donald trump's books are written for him?
Copilot response: Tony Schwartz, who ghostwrote "The Art of the Deal", has openly stated that Donald Trump did not write any part of the book. Schwartz was credited as a co-author, but he has expressed regret over his involvement.
As for Michelle Obama's memoir "Becoming", she acknowledged the help of a "team of collaborators" in the book's acknowledgments. While she did receive assistance, it appears she was deeply involved in the writing process, making it a personal project. Unlike Trump's book, Michelle Obama's memoir reflects her own voice and experiences, even if she had help with the research and writing.
Ghostwriting is quite common, especially for high-profile individuals, but the level of involvement can vary significantly. In Michelle Obama's case, it seems she played a significant role in crafting her story.