Tony Schwartz, the co-author of President Trump’s bestselling book, “The Art of the Deal,” said he would be fine if it is reclassified “as fiction” after the New York Times published a piece detailing Trump’s enormous business losses over two decades.
Schwartz has been a frequent and vocal critic of the president since Trump’s presidential run in 2016.
“Given the Times report on Trump’s staggering losses, I’d be fine if Random House simply took the book out of print,” Schwartz wrote in a tweet Wednesday. “Or recategorized it as fiction.”
{mosads}The New York Times, citing copies of Trump’s tax transcripts from 1985 to 1994, report Trump’s businesses lost nearly $1.2 billion over the time period.
It also found that Trump’s businesses lost more than $250 million in both 1990 and 1991, more than twice that of the nearest taxpayer in the IRS information for the two years.
Schwartz told The New Yorker in the summer of 2016 when Trump was campaigning to be president that he ghostwrote most of the book and Trump had little role in it.
Trump has denied the claim and said he worked with Schwartz as a co-author.
Schwartz said he regrets using the title phrase of the book to push a “fake marketing idea” of Trump’s business dealings.