Sure, the Donald knew Bernie Madoff. Would see him in Palm Beach from time to time. But Trump was too smart to be taken in by Bernie Madoff. And anyway, what did he need him for when he had, you know, himself? “He’d say, ‘Why don’t you invest in my fund?’ I didn’t know much about him and I’m not a fund guy so I said no. I had enough going on in my own businesses that I didn’t need to be associated or involved with his,” Trump says of Madoff in his new book, Think Like a Champion. “I think we would all do well to pay heed to all of our transactions no matter how much we might respect or like someone. But the main lesson is never to invest 100 percent of your money with one person or one entity.” For a second there, we kind of liked Bernie for trying. [Alpha Consumer/US News via Clusterstock]