What Donald Trump learned from Roy Cohn

zero tolerance for criminal aliens zero Donald Trump fires new broadsides at undocumented immigrants but just hours earlier in his meeting with the Mexican president a different side it is a great honor to be invited by you Mr President tonight new insights into how Donald Trump conducts himself waging constant public battles like to punch him in the face the revelations come in thousands of pages of documents just released by The Washington Post a foundation for the new book Trump revealed by post journalist Michael cranes and Mark fiser they give a fascinating account of one of Donald Trump's first lessons in bare knuckle brawling in business and politics Trump was in his mid-20s the US government was suing Trump his father Fred and their company for allegedly discriminating against minorities who wanted to rent apartments from them around that time Donald Trump had a fateful first meeting with a New York Legend in a very down moment Donald Trump went to a nightclub in Manhattan called Club where he happened to meet Roy con who was famous for having defended senator Joseph McCarthy back in the 1950s in the Communist hunting days from McCarthy to the Mobsters he represented Roy con was a battler he was tough often downright nasty in court or on CNN's Crossfire I said that according to a book I read well read another book con's message to Trump in that nightclub conversation tell the government to quote go to hell in that very first meeting con laid out for him his philosophy of how to fight back in a lawsuit how to fight back against a federal investigation and that was to hit back 10 times harder a former lawyer for the government describes the atmosphere in court we go to court it's the first day and it's very very tense we have the trumps both the father and the son Roy Cohen us the justice department my boss con and the trumps fought that lawsuit for two years they settled but it was bruising case documents show one attempt by the government to get the trumps to prove they weren't discriminating quote died a slow death very much meshed with his idea of how he was going to differentiate himself from his father his father Donald thought uh should have moved from Brooklyn and Queens onto the much bigger stage of Manhattan the trying to make projects work on in the most difficult risky environment of all and his felt that his father was a little too risk averse but Mark fiser says in Roy con Trump found someone who loved risk just like he did and con opened Trump's eyes to another idea which Trump of course employs so well to this day how to use the media to your advantage with the philosophy that any publicity is good publicity