1. Trump Tower in New York has 58 floors. Trump claims to live on the 66th-68th floor.
2. As a child, when it was raining, the family chauffer would drive Trump around in a Cadillac to deliver newspapers on Trump’s paper route.
3. In 2012, Trump altered the rules of the Miss Universe pageant to allow transgender people to take part.
4. A TSG review found that Trump may be the least generous billionaire in the USA in terms of giving money to charity. The New Yorker has calculated that he may have given just 5 cents per $100 earnt to charity.
5. Twice a day as President, Trump receives a folder full only of positive news about himself. Each folder contains 20-25 pages of pro-Trump tweets, positive Trump news and photos of Trump looking powerful, with 7-10 people working on providing the President with these folders.
6. Trump once sued author Timothy O’Brien for calling him a millionaire not a billionaire. Ironically, Trump sued O’Brien for $5 billion in damages.
7. Trump was a registered Democrat between the years 2001-2009. He has switched political affiliation at least 5 times since the 1980s.
8. Back to the Future writer, Bob Gale, claims that character Biff Tannen is based upon Donald Trump.
9. During 1999, Trump suggested a one off ‘wealth tax’ entailing individuals worth $10 million or more paying 14.25% in tax. He theorised that this would raise $5.7 trillion and eliminate the American debt.
10. The original Renoir painting ‘Two Sisters’ is housed in the New Art Institute of Chicago. Despite this, Trump believes his copy of this painting is genuine.
11. If Trump had invested his inherited monetary share of his father’s real-estate company into the Manhattan stock market and then done nothing, he would be richer than he now is.
12. In 2000, Trump ran for President of America, representing the Reform Party. He wanted Oprah Winfrey to be his running mate. Trump won the California and Michigan Reform Party Primaries despite withdrawing from the presidential campaign.
13. In 2015, Trump’s steak company called ‘Trump Steakhouse’ was shut down. Amongst its 51 health code breaches it served 5 month old duck.
14. Trump uses double sided sticky-tape to stop his tie from moving out of place.
15. Trump won a Razzie Award for worst supporting actor in his role in “supernatural sex comedy” movie ‘Ghosts Can’t Do It.’
16. Within ‘Art of the Deal’, Trump claims to have punched his second-grade music teacher in the face causing a black eye with Trump’s motive being that the music teacher didn’t know about music.
17. For the 1988 Presidential election, Trump was considered for the role of running mate of George H. W. Bush. It is claimed that Trump asked to be Bush’s running mate although Trump insists that Bush’s camp approached him with the idea. Dan Quayle eventually won the position.
18. Trump has a self-confessed fear of germs and an alleged fear of stairs.
19. In 1989 and 1990, Trump hosted a cycling race named the Tour de Trump with the goal of making it the American equivalent of the Tour de France. A Dutch brothel sponsored one of the teams in the race. Trump also attempted to shut down the similarly named Tour de Rump cycling race.
20. Trumps brother, Fred, died from alcoholism and thus Donald doesn’t drink. Donald Trump has also never smoked or consumed illicit drugs. Trump did begin ‘Trump Vodka’ in 2006 however sales floundered and the product was discontinued.
21. Trump has never used an ATM.
22. On one of this golf courses in Virginia, Trump had a plaque made plus a stone pedestal and flag with the monument dedicated to the many “great American soldiers” who died at this location. This River of Blood monument is a fake Civil War construction dedicated to a battle that never happened.
23. For Scientific American Mind, Trump was compared to leaders according to a standardised assessment of psychopathic traits. He scored more than Adolf Hitler.
24. Donald’s uncle, John Trump, developed a type of radiation therapy to be used in the future as a cancer treatment. Upon Tesla’s death, John was the scientist who reviewed Tesla’s work and notes finding them of little value. Conspiracy theorists have suspected Tesla’s notes contained a glut of enterprising inventions including a death ray.
25. According to Forbes, director George Lucas is richer than Donald Trump.
26. In 1990, SPY Magazine sent cheques to well-known Americans in an experiment to see how low the cheque could be before the receiver didn’t cash them. Two of the 58 people cashed the 13 cent cheque- An arms dealer and Donald Trump.
27. Trump claims to have predicted the September 11 attacks in his book ‘The America We Deserve.’
28. Trump believes that the human body has a finite and set amount of energy and that exercising uses up this limited commodity akin to a battery. Trump once warned one of his casino executives against Ironman triathlon training, telling him “You are going to die young because of this.”
29. Donald Trump’s Grandmother had the maiden name ‘Christ.’ Donald’s father also had the middle name ‘Christ.’
30. Trump once tried to trademark his ‘The Apprentice’ catchphrase “You’re fired!” to be used on games. The Trademark was denied as there was already a game called “You’re Hired” and there also existed a Chicago pottery shop called “You’re Fired.”
31. In 1986, Osama Bin Laden’s half-brother stayed at an apartment in Trump Tower, New York and Trump received money from him.
32. From 1990 to 2007, Trump donated just $3.7 million to his own charity. In contrast, World Wrestling Entertainment gave more money to Trump’s charity in 2007 alone.
33. Trump thinks that asbestos has “got a bad rap.” He also believes the anti-asbestos movement has only thrived because the mafia are involved in removing asbestos. Despite Trump’s claims the WHO warns that over 100,000 people die every year due to asbestos. Trump also believes the World Trade Center would not have burnt down if the asbestos wasn’t removed from it.
34. Trump sleeps for less than 4 hours per night.
35. Historically, Donald’s family name was changed from Drumpf to Trump.
36. Trump’s grandfather was in charge of a restaurant that was also used as a brothel.
37. In 1989, three executives of Trump’s casinos were killed when a helicopter crashed in New Jersey. Trump supposedly bragged that he was scheduled to take this helicopter and had cheated death. John O’Connell who worked for Trump claims that Trump exploited the situation and had never been scheduled to take the fallen helicopter. O’Connell continues on to allege that Trump blamed the dead executives for various exploits that were Trump’s own doing.
38. Trump is the oldest person to become President, aged 70.
39. Former worker of Trump’s, John O’ Donnell says that Trump views baldness as a sign of weakness. Trump is alleged to have said that going bald is the worst thing a man can do.
40. In the hours following the September 11 attacks, when asked whether any of his buildings had been damaged, Trump responded by saying that Trump Building was now the tallest structure in downtown Manhattan. It turns out that this wasn’t true and in fact 70 Pine Street became the tallest building in the vicinity.
41. Trump admits to colouring his hair and has stated that his wife Melania cuts his hair.
42. Trump University opened in 2005 although it was not accredited and it was sued by the NY Attorney General for allegedly “defrauding students.”
43. Citizen Kane is Trump’s favourite movie with him once remarking that “I think you learn in Kane that maybe wealth isn’t everything.”
44. In 1989, Trump announced plans to build the world’s tallest building in New York at 150 floors in height. The New Yorker described the planned building as “an exotically banal hundred-and-fifty-story phallus.”
45. A Dominican Republic newspaper accidentally published a photo of Trump impersonator Alec Baldwin thinking it was the real President Trump.
46. At various times Trump has named his favourite book as ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’, ‘The Bible’ and his own books ‘Surviving at the Top’ and ‘The Art of the Deal.’
47. Trump has been involved in over 3,500 legal cases.
48. Due to his role as producer of ‘The Apprentice’ Trump received a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 2007. Interestingly, after having a nomination accepted, it costs $30,000 to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
49. In 1988 when former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev was in New York, Trump heard he was outside Trump Tower and raced down to meet him. What ensued was Trump calling the impromptu meeting a “great honour” ignorant of the fact he was meeting with a Gorbachev impersonator.
50. Trump is a member of the World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Fame. He has said this honour means more to him than his high book sales, TV ratings and Hollywood star.
51. In 1987, Trump purchased the world’s third largest yacht and named it ‘Trump Princess.’ He never spent a night on the yacht, instead using it to entertain those who frequented his casinos.
52. Graydon Carter of SPY Magazine referred to Trump as a “short fingered vulgarian” in 1988. As a consequence, over the past 29 years, Carter has received intermittent envelopes from Trump in which a photo of Trump is contained, generally from a magazine. On all of the photos, Trump’s hands are circled in golden sharpie.
53. Trump’s companies have filed for bankruptcy 6 times.
54. TIME Magazine has asked Trump to remove several fake TIME Magazine covers featuring Trump that are displayed in his golf clubs.
55. Trump was named Time Magazine person of the year in 2016.
56. On both of Trump’s heels there are birthmarks.
57. Trump owned the Plaza Hotel when Home Alone 2 was being filmed and he makes an appearance in the film. The carpet in the Plaza Hotel was removed to facilitate Macaulay Culkin sliding across the floor and Trump liked this new look so much that he never replaced the carpet.
58. The White House of Donald Trump is the first since James Polk 168 years earlier not to have a pet.
President Trump Liked Artworks at His French Embassy So Much He Took Them Home. Too Bad He Has a Habit of Falling for Fakes
Trump went on the art-borrowing spree instead of visiting a military cemetery during a French state visit.
US President Donald Trump’s taste in art has made headlines again—and it is clear that the nation’s commander-in-chief doesn’t seem to place much importance in owning the real deal. The artworks that Trump brought home from the official Paris residence of US Ambassador Jamie McCourt in 2018 were, it has been revealed, actually replicas of a historic Benjamin Franklin portrait and bust, as well as 20th-century silver figurines passed off as 16th- or 17th-century originals.
While in Paris, Trump had planned to make an official visit outside the city to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery for fallen Marines. He cancelled the trip, worried rain would ruin his infamous combover—and unconvinced there was any merit to the engagement. “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers,” he told senior advisors, according to an Atlantic report that has been dissected endlessly on cable news in recent days.
Now, yet another tidbit has emerged about the trip: Instead of visiting the grave site, Trump spent the day admiring and summarily snatching art from the ambassador’s home, the Hôtel de Pontalba, loading up Air Force One with works he wanted to put on display at the White House.
“The president brought these beautiful, historical pieces, which belong to the American people, back to the United States to be prominently displayed in the People’s House,” White House spokesman Judd Deere told Bloomberg, which first reported the story.
Joseph Siffred Duplessis, Benjamin Franklin. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation.
“It’s quite common for artwork and pieces to loaned and exchanged between government buildings, which is the case with these items,” a White House official told People. “These items… were sitting in rooms in the ambassador’s residence where nobody saw them.”
Back in Washington, DC, White House curators delivered some bad news: the Franklin portrait by Joseph Siffred Duplessis was actually a copy. The original was just down the street, at the National Portrait Gallery. The museum proceeded to loan the genuine article, previously on view in its galleries, to the White House, in March 2019, through February 1, 2021. (A spokesperson for the National Portrait Gallery did not have information about the whereabouts of the copy.) The Franklin bust was also a replica, but Trump allegedly joked that the knockoff was better than the authentic version.
The silver figurines that caught the president’s eye, meanwhile, now grace the mantlepiece of the Oval Office. Depicting Greek gods, they are the handiwork of Neapolitan artist Luigi Avolio. According to the Artnet Price Database, his work has never found a buyer at auction, with presale estimates on four bought-in lots offered between 2015 and 2019 ranging from €2,000 ($2,239) to €20,000 ($23,000). (How that squares with a Bloomberg source’s appraisal that the works Trump picked out in Paris were collectively worth $750,000 is unclear.)
A statue of Poseidon stands on the mantle in the Oval Office. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.
Altogether, it’s something of an embarrassing anecdote, but at least this time, Trump wasn’t trying to pass anything off as a priceless masterpiece—which he’s done before.
Following the 2016 election, Trump gave an interview to 60 Minutes, sitting in front of what appeared to be a Pierre-Auguste Renoir painting hanging on the wall of the Trump Tower penthouse in New York. He had reportedly bragged to a New York Times reporter about owning the work, Two Sisters (on the Terrace), but the real painting by the Impressionist great is actually one of the jewels of the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago—as the reporter was quick to point out.
Andy Thomas, The Republican Club. Courtesy of the artist.
Another reproduction, of Renoir’s 1874 canvas La Loge (The Theater Box), is part of the decor at Melania Trump’s Fifth Avenue apartment, according to the New York Post—but the original is at the Courtauld Art Institute in London. The president is also said to have boasted to another reporter that a “Renoir” displayed in his private jet was “worth $10 million,” a claim that seems unlikely to be true.
Even in the case of less historic works, Trump isn’t necessarily concerned about whether or not it’s actually by the artist’s hand. When California Republican congressman Darrell Issa gave Trump a piece by Andy Thomas—also spotted on 60 Minutes, hanging in the White House dining room—it wasn’t actually a painting, but a “high-quality laser print” of The Republican Club, the artist told the Washington Post.
The work, priced between $55 and $1,700, shows Trump sitting around a club with historic Republican presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, and Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Who needs the real thing if a knockoff looks close enough?
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