Newly released tapes of Donald Trump’s conversations with a biographer shed new light on how the Republican presidential nominee views failure.
Trump tells Michael D’Antonio that he never failed “because I always turned a failure into a success.”
D’Antonio provided the tapes to The New York Times, which published them on Wednesday.
Trump also compares Peggy Lee’s song “Is That All Their Is?” to his “tremendous successes.”
“It’s a great song,” Trump says, “because I’ve had these tremendous successes and then I’m off to the next one. Because, it’s like, ‘Oh, is that all there is?'”
Trump in the tapes does not hold back from expressing his love for fighting, including physical fights, which ultimately landed him in military school.
In the conversations, Trump also recalls the first time his name appeared in a newspaper.
“I was probably a sophomore in high school. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I thought it was amazing. … It felt good,” Trump tells D’Antonio.
Trump also explains that he views media attention as free advertising, which he has taken advantage of throughout his White House bid.
“I could say, ‘No,’ and then I could advertise a project that I’m doing, like Doral or something, and spend a half a million dollars on it or a million dollars, or I can do the show and spend nothing and be on for a lot longer. Do you understand what I meant? So I’ve always felt it was a positive thing,” he says.
This report was updated at 8:15 a.m.