Last April, perhaps in a surge of Czech nationalism, Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. Kennedy now guards a copy of My New Order in a closet at his office, as if it were a grenade. Hitler’s speeches, from his earliest days up through the Phony War of 1939, reveal his extraordinary ability as a master propagandist.
“Did your cousin John give you the Hitler speeches?” I asked Trump.
Trump hesitated. “Who told you that?”
“I don’t remember,” I said.
“Actually, it was my friend Marty Davis from Paramount who gave me a copy of Mein Kampf, and he’s a Jew.” (“I did give him a book about Hitler,” Marty Davis said. “But it was My New Order, Hitler’s speeches, not Mein Kampf. I thought he would find it interesting. I am his friend, but I’m not Jewish.”)
Later, Trump returned to this subject. “If I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them.”
I think I first heard this from an article by Tony Schwartz who wrote The Art of the Deal. He mentioned seeing the speeches book by Trump’s bed during one of their brief meetings about Trump’s book, which Trump took no part in.
The most likely theory is that he desperately needs reading glasses, but is too proud to wear them. So he simply can’t read anything in public, because he needs the glasses that he keeps in his room.
He often squints reading the prompter, and he has to concentrate so his manner of speech moderates significantly. Then you see him flip the switch to freewheeling bullshit.
I think he’s one of those readers who cannot take in the content of text while focusing on reading. You’ll notice he only starts freewheeling on the last word or two of a sentence or paragraph. That’s all he’s heard.
I doubt that Trump has ever read Shakespeare.
He has, however, read a collection of Hitler’s speeches:
I think I first heard this from an article by Tony Schwartz who wrote The Art of the Deal. He mentioned seeing the speeches book by Trump’s bed during one of their brief meetings about Trump’s book, which Trump took no part in.
I’m more surprised that he reads. I thought he was basically illiterate lol.
The most likely theory is that he desperately needs reading glasses, but is too proud to wear them. So he simply can’t read anything in public, because he needs the glasses that he keeps in his room.
He does read the teleprompter occasionally, but the reading glasses theory makes sense.
He often squints reading the prompter, and he has to concentrate so his manner of speech moderates significantly. Then you see him flip the switch to freewheeling bullshit.
I think he’s one of those readers who cannot take in the content of text while focusing on reading. You’ll notice he only starts freewheeling on the last word or two of a sentence or paragraph. That’s all he’s heard.
I doubt that Trump has ever read
Shakespeare.I doubt that Trump has ever read anything.
Having said that, he could have watched this excellent Merchant of Venice movie starrting Al Pacino, so he would know who Shylock is.