Trump's true apprentices: his two children

By Stephane Fitch

updated 6:07 p.m. ET Sept. 21, 2006

Donald Trump, famous for his wealth, infamous for his ego, has a dim view of the world. To the real estate mogul and TV star, most people are either “enemies,” “bastards,” “sleazebags” or “stone-cold losers.” He isn’t acting when a little glee creeps into his curt dismissal of contestants on The Apprentice: “You’re fired.”

But there are two souls Trump trusts, the ultimate apprentices: his oldest children, Donald Jr., 28, known as Don, and Ivanka, 24. Enough that they are gradually assuming day-to-day responsibilities in the Trump property empire, which has four developments of its own and, as a label for hire, is a consultant and front for dozens of buildings that others construct. The Trumps, that is, run a franchising operation for condo vendors.

At 60, Donald J. Trump remains firmly in control of his real estate company, the Trump Organization, overseeing things great and small. But as his kids jet around the world to check on his projects, he’s devoting even more time to his public appearances (he was at Hugh Hefner’s 80th birthday party this spring). And he’s eyeing new reality TV shows now that The Apprentice is fading in the ratings. One idea: a knockoff of the Monopoly board game, apt for a man whose casinos are fixtures on the Atlantic City boardwalk.

Ivanka and Don embody two sides of their father. Ivanka, a former model, is the spotlight-loving Ms. Outside, and her brother is the detail-obsessed Mr. Inside. The family dynamics are on view on a recent Sunday evening when Donald Trump walks onto the stage of the Los Angeles Convention Center to the din of an adoring crowd. The audience of 54,000 would-be real estate millionaires has been whipped into a frenzy by two dozen hiphop dancers gyrating to the slick theme music from The Apprentice. Trump, who is getting $1 million for the speaking gig, says he looks forward to their questions. “Ideally, to be sexually oriented,” he says. Not about “real estate, which is boring.”

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Don Jr. is not present. He is spending an unglamorous weekend back in the family’s New York base, fielding phone calls from project managers, builders and lawyers. “I know the entertainment stuff helps us,” he says. “But somebody’s got to stay here to remind everybody that we build buildings.”

Ivanka is decidedly present in L.A. An audience member asks her father for a date with her. “On The View, I said she was so beautiful that if she weren’t my daughter, I’d date her myself,” he says, then beckons Ivanka to the stage to further rev up the crowd.

“Okay, honey, now sit down — get the hell outta here,” he says. She feigns offense, then flashes a bulletproof smile.

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Learned lessons from his father
Donald Trump learned the business from his father, Fred, a housing developer in New York’s outer boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn. “One advantage my father had was that he knew what everything cost,” Trump wrote in a memoir. Well versed in Fred’s hard-negotiating style, the ambitious young Donald Trump made his mark in the mid-1970s by invading Manhattan. After bare-knuckled bargaining with the city, he won tax breaks to refurbish a rundown hotel near Grand Central Terminal.

Trump has been an exacting tutor to his offspring, whether the subject is how concrete is mixed or how the celebrated surname is marketed. They now are in the post-grad phase. While Trump still gets a last word on every deal Don Jr. and Ivanka arrange, a large number of details are in the kids’ hands. “I’m very proud of my children,” he says. “They’re doing a terrific job.”

Give the man his due: Beyond his operatic personal life and tempest-tossed business career, the truth is that he understands how to make good deals, build good buildings and make good money. “People say he’s not worth this or he doesn’t really own that,” says New York developer Richard LeFrak. “But measure him by what he gets built. It’s impressive.”

Trump has made a handsome recovery from the early 1990s, when he was on the brink of insolvency because he borrowed too much and real estate tanked. The last vestige of that bloody era played out two years ago with the bankruptcy filing of his publicly traded casino company, which is separate from the privately held Trump Organization. Trump Entertainment Resorts emerged from Chapter 11 in mid-2005 with Trump’s equity stake reduced from 47% to 31%.Trump was shorn of the chief executive role; he remains chairman. Don Jr. and Ivanka aren’t involved in running the casinos.

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