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

[Music] you love every waking moment I like the reputation of a solid married man that's what I'd like for me then I feel like I've known him for millions of murders be it painful be it pleasant it's just like we're bonded we're really bonded that's all they are the Trump's 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 there so why didn't you marry her right away when you found out she was pregnant why did you decision and if it's really indecision was that you're destroying my reputation again here you know it's already happened once and just loving you look what happened just because I loved you and now you know not to be married before we have the baby oh my god but in terms of the personal life it's to me it's a more difficult decision you know it's in many respects are

much bigger decision your revocable 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 opened up to a now darling you guys I felt about it which was that please don't talk to me down I've stuck by you through everything don't even offend me but 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 gonna 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 Amala hates it doesn't want to sign it ultimately she has decided just from my standpoint she has to sign it so I said whatever you need for your bankers for for your associates I'll sign

that this does not caught open up shoreland let's not put a dollar amount on what happens once we're divorced what's 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 it looks cheap yeah you mean the amount of money well them out of mine 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 and you should not be able to second write a little check see you later it's 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 know 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 she said incredibly loyal she you're finally gonna 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 maybe believed this somewhere everything is a deal well everything's okay we have to work on separating his business from his personal there we both have to sometimes stop and say this business raises 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 fourteen million dollars the bill came due not long after wife Ivana confronted mistress Marla apres ski in Aspen that day in the restaurant when you saw those two women actually meeting each

other face to face how did you know 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 it 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's sort of

lighten 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 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 go little I started getting boring and then one day the pedestal was knocked out from under me and it was injustice marriage at the same time the Trump Empire began to collapse under the weight

of the recession the Trump shuttled hemorrhaged Atlantic City gown 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 III 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 gonna 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 I'm loyal to a point of the absurd I stay with people and it seems the man who could have been a contender maybe won 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 is bailing me I build 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 a hundred and fifteen million and I'm gonna 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 your lunch 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 for him everybody wall street has a lot of respect the Trump I call a lot of analysts they said we're receptive to Donald Trump because he usually

ends up producing respect is another issue 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 here okay if you're in business for yourself I really think it's a bad idea to put your wife working for you 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 have on around the Trump Castle casino in Atlantic City and you never thought of asking her to quit 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 there 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 a 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 oh yeah the day of the wedding and

I think I'm probably mixed I have days where I think it's great yeah 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 dinners not ready I go through the roof okay no it's interesting dollars you take these women yes 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 stores I love creating stores

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 their store the fun is over from it's like a creation process it's almost like creating a building it's pretty sad nothing that's all [Music] you