Donald Trump： 'Putting a Wife to Work Is a Very Dangerous Thing' [FULL 1994 INTERVIEW]

I like the reputation of a solid, married man. That's what I'd like for me. I feel like I've known him for millions of years, be it painful, be it pleasant. It's just like we're bonded. We're really bonded. That's all I ask of you. They are the Trumps of New York and Palm Beach, living the glamorous life as if the 80s never ended, at Mar-a-Lago, their historic villa by the sea. Marla and the Donald, married at last, but not without some drama. I think it was a little bit surprising. We really anticipated getting married and having a baby, not having a baby and getting married. So why didn't you marry her right away when you found out she was pregnant? Indecision. Really indecision. I was like, you're destroying my reputation again here. You know? It's already happened once in just loving you, with what happened just because I loved you. And now, you know, not to be married before you have the baby? Oh my God. But in terms of the personal life, to me it's a more difficult decision. You know, it's in many respects a much bigger decision. Well, it's an irrevocable deal. Well, it really is. In theory, it's an irrevocable deal. And so Tiffany Ariana became a Trump two months before her mother signed on the dotted line. Not the marriage license, the prenuptial agreement. Everyone around Donald was like, you've got to get a prenuptial now. Donald knew how I felt about it, which was that, please don't talk to me about it. I've stuck by you through everything. Don't even offend me by, you know, you know, you know I love you. I hate the concept of a prenuptial agreement because it basically says, if and when you get divorced, this is what you're going to get. And there's something very bad about that. But I think it's a modern day necessity. I didn't like the way this system works. I mean, I really felt that it was very offensive to both of us. And he'd say, you know, you're right, but what am I supposed to do? Marla hates it, doesn't want to sign it. Ultimately, she has to sign it. Just from my standpoint, she has to sign it. So I said, whatever you need for your bankers, for your associates, I'll sign that. Let's just not call it a prenuptial, and let's not put a dollar amount on what happens once we're divorced. Once we're divorced, right? I mean, that's the way you start thinking. In the end, they made a deal. Reports had her asking for $25 million, but he negotiated her down to a mere million dollars. It looks a little... Cheap? Yeah. Wow. It looks cheap. Yeah. You mean the amount of money? Well, the amount of money... That's so bad. Somebody gets married and it doesn't work out, you get a million bucks. I mean, you know. You shouldn't be able to pay a price and be able to walk away. You make a commitment between yourselves and God, and you should not be able to say, write a little check, see you later. It's a lousy thing. I hate the concept, but it's totally necessary. And I think a million dollars is a lot of money. No, you don't. No, I don't, actually. But the fact is that a million dollars for somebody coming into a marriage, if something didn't... And I'm not talking about anybody specifically, but it's a lot of money for somebody. The woman's been with you six years. She's been, as you said, incredibly loyal. You're finally going to get married. You have a child. Give her the 25 million. Well, I guess I look at everything like a deal. I mean, you know, it's just one of those things. Donald said to me, and I believe he believed this somewhere, everything is a deal. Well, everything's a deal. We have to work on separating his business from his personal. You know, we both have to sometimes stop and say, is this business or is this us? Because there is a difference. I built this empire, and I did it by myself. Nobody did it for me. Not Ivana, not Marla, nobody. And I think that because somebody marries somebody that built something huge doesn't necessarily mean that just because they get a divorce that they should end up, you know, like the Queen of Sheba. Or perhaps like Ivana, wife number one. When Trump walked away from their 13-year marriage, it cost him a total of $14 million. The bill came due not long after wife Ivana confronted mistress Marla Opreyski in Aspen. That day in the restaurant when you saw those two women actually meeting each other face to face, how did you feel? We were actually standing near the restaurant getting ready to put skis on. And I was standing there like an idiot, and Marla and Ivana were here. And there wasn't shouting, but you could obviously see there was some friction. And a man who was standing right next to me who weighed about 350 pounds and wasn't a very attractive guy said to me, it could be worse, Donald. I've been in Aspen for 20 years, and I've never had a date. And I'll never forget the statement. And it sort of lightened it up a little bit for me. I'm saying, you know, I guess it could be worse. Do you think unless the two had actually come face to face, you would have confronted that situation? Well, it's interesting because it's possible that, you know, maybe it would still be going on. I'm not sure. Truth be told, Donald Trump had lived a charmed life, the model mogul of the 1980s. I mean, my life was so great in so many ways. The business was so great. And the the I mean, even the concept, I mean, a beautiful girlfriend, beautiful wife, beautiful everything. I mean, life was just a bowl of cherries. There was Trump Shuttle, Trump Princess, Trump Tower. By 1989, he says his empire was worth five billion dollars. And he was, well, let him tell you, I was at the highest of all pedestals, the hottest in the country, the highest point. Everything I touched turned to gold immediately. Everything I did turn to gold and life started getting boring. And then one day the pedestal was knocked out from under me. And it wasn't just his marriage. At the same time, the Trump empire began to collapse under the weight of the recession. The Trump Shuttle hemorrhaged. Atlantic City gamblers had no money to spend in Trump's new billion dollar casino. And his heavily mortgaged real estate holdings plummeted in value. Midas had lost his touch. It was an amazing period. I, in many respects, I used to say to people, someday I'd like to be poor just for a little while, just to see who's going to remain loyal to me. There were specifically 24 or 25 people that I have earmarked who were very disloyal, who shouldn't have been disloyal. And I think that's the thing that I learned more than anything else, Nancy, was loyalty, because I'm like this great loyalty freak. I'm loyal to a point of the absurd. I stay with people. And it seems the man who could have been a contender may be one yet again. After four years of staving off bankers, Donald Trump's casino business has come back. And within months, he'll sell shares, giving the public a chance to buy a piece of the Donald. Why should the public pay to bail Donald Trump out if, in fact, you do go public? Well, nobody's bailing me out. I bail myself out. I think I've done a really great job of getting out of trouble. How much personal debt do you have now? Well, I had billions of dollars of debt, five in excess of five billion. I had nine hundred and seventy five million dollars worth of personal debt. And that's down now to about one hundred and fifteen million. And I'm going to pay that off very quickly. In fact, over the next very short period of time. Do you think that Wall Street respects you? Yeah, I think a lot of I think Wall Street has a lot of respect. Call it what you like. They are certainly courting him. Hey, fellas, these two guys head up Merrill Lynch. And by the way, speaking about your last question, they came to Florida to kiss my ass, to get the work from Merrill Lynch. You have no idea the pressure that's put on me by everybody in the country. Literally, I'm getting calls from everybody. Would I use this firm? Would I use that firm? Everybody. Wall Street has a lot of respect for Trump. I called a lot of analysts. They said we're receptive to Donald Trump because he usually ends up producing. Respect is another issue. And maybe he doesn't like the way I dress or something else, but he likes the way I make money. And, you know, the analysts all like the way I make money. Trump says he has learned from his mistakes in business and in love. I think that putting a wife to work is a very dangerous thing. I mean, we'll make we'll do an educational program. If you're in business for yourself, I really think it's a bad idea to put your wife working. I think it's a really bad idea. I think that was the single greatest cause of what happened to my marriage with Ivana. The trouble started, he claims, after he suggested that Ivana run the Trump Castle casino in Atlantic City. And you never thought of asking her to quit when you saw it wasn't working? Well, I'll give you an example. I didn't think of it that way. So you tend not to think of it that way. Ivana would get angry at somebody over the telephone all of a sudden who was at the casino and she'd start shouting. And I'd say, I don't want my wife shouting at somebody like that. I really don't want that. And a softness disappeared. It was a great softness to Ivana. And she still has that softness. But during this period of time, she became an executive, not a wife. Well, you now are married to a woman and you would like to continue her career. Marla says she does want to have a career. There's a difference between having a career and working for me. You have said you don't want Marla to work. You actually said that on the day of the wedding. I think I'm probably mixed. I have days where I think it's great. And then I have days where if I come home and, you know, I don't want to sound too much like a chauvinist, but when I come home and dinner's not ready, I go through the roof. You know what's interesting, Donald, is you take these women, these two particular women in your life, and you help them become very well known. And then when they want to act on that appeal, you seem to get upset about it. I create stars. I love creating stars. And to a certain extent, I've done that with Ivana. To a certain extent, I've done that with Marla. And I like that. Let me lead you from your solitude. I mean, I've really given a lot of women great opportunity. Unfortunately, after they're a star, the fun is over for me. It's like a creation process. It's almost like creating a building. It's pretty sad. Love me. That's all I ask of you.