8 Times Donald Trump Claimed He Was A Self-Made Man

Donald Trump has, for decades, attempted to portray himself as a self-made, up-by-your-bootstraps entrepreneur who benefited little from his father’s fortune, relying on his own gumption and wiles to overcome financial challenges. Trump has said that loan totaled $1 million, but the NYT found he received nearly $61 million https://t.co/IzK3E0rLJg pic.twitter.com/BYSlJaTvXX — CBS Evening News October 3, 2018 “My father gave me a small loan of a million dollars.” One myth that Trump has repeatedly touted is the claim that he transformed a “small loan” of $1 million from his father ― that he accepted early in his career and repaid with interest — and transformed it into a “massive empire.” “It has not been easy for me,” Trump, as a presidential candidate, said at a town hall in New Hampshire in October 2015. “Rich men are less likely to like me, but the working man likes me because he knows I worked hard and didn’t inherit what I’ve built.” In his famous 1990 interview with Playboy magazine, Trump declared he was beloved by the “working man” because he “didn’t inherit what I’ve built.” That claim is contradicted by the hundreds of millions of dollars that Trump reportedly reaped from his dad’s real estate fortune, starting from when he was a young child. New York Daily News Archive/Getty Images My father’s “story is classic Horatio Alger.” In The Art Of The Deal, Trump’s 1987 ghostwritten bestseller, the real estate magnate downplayed his father’s own wealthy background. I don’t think so.” In a rare moment of recognition of his privileged upbringing, Trump admitted in his 2009 book Think Like A Champion that he was a “member of the lucky sperm club” ― a term he’d earlier defined as someone who’d inherited “somebody else’s wealth.” He insisted, however, that his father’s real estate fortune had little bearing on his own success.