Trump says he's a master negotiator. Those who've actually dealt with him beg to differ. [View all]

[DonViejo]

‘He Pretty Much Gave In to Whatever They Asked For’

Trump says he’s a master negotiator. Those who’ve actually dealt with him beg to differ.

By MICHAEL KRUSE June 01, 2018

n 1985, Tony Schwartz, a writer for New York magazine, was sitting in Donald Trump’s office in Trump Tower interviewing him for a story. Trump told him he had agreed to write a book for Random House. “Well, if you’re going to write a book,” Schwartz said, recalling this interaction in a speech he gave last fall at the University of Michigan, “you ought to call it The Art of the Deal.”

“I like that,” Trump said. “Do you want to write it?”

These sorts of arrangements typically are not that generous for the writer. “Most writers for hire receive a flat fee, or a relatively modest percentage of any money the book earns,” Schwartz said in the speech. Schwartz, by contrast, got from Trump an almost unheard-of half of the $500,000 advance from Random House and also half of the royalties. And it didn’t even take a lot of haggling.

“He basically just agreed,” Schwartz told me in an email, meaning Schwartz ever since has brought in millions of dollars more of royalties and Trump has brought in millions of dollars less.

It’s a telling example, Harvard Business School negotiating professor Deepak Malhotra said in a recent interview. “What should have been a great deal on a book about negotiation actually is one of the most interesting pieces of evidence that he’s not a good negotiator.” Malhotra, the author of Negotiating the Impossible, pointed out Schwartz even got his name on the cover, and in same-sized text. “I don’t think there’s a better ghostwriting deal out there.”

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https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/06/01/donald-trump-deals-negotiation-art-of-deal-218584