Coldhearted. Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty Images

Donald Trump once ran a “university” that sold fraudulent master classes in real-estate investing to his most devoted, cash-strapped fans. That school instructed its recruiters to target “a single parent of three children that may need money for food” — and to encourage such working-poor people to finance their “educations” with massive credit-card debt. If a prospective student expressed anxiety about maxing out his or her credit cards, recruiters were instructed to reply, “Do you enjoy seeing everyone else but yourself in their dream houses and driving their dreams cars with huge checking accounts? Those people saw an opportunity, and didn’t make excuses, like what you’re doing now.”

In 2009, the mogul started a multilevel marketing scheme that promised to let down-on-their-luck Americans “opt-out of the recession.” The man used his “charitable” foundation to rebrand other people’s donations, pay off legal settlements, and purchase a painting of himself. Throughout his business career, Trump made a regular practice of paying his contractors less than he had promised.

Trump betrayed his wives in spectacular fashion and neglected his children. He adopted Roy Cohn as a mentor and father figure, and wrote this tribute to Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel in the Art of the Deal.

What I liked most about Roy Cohn was that he would do just the opposite. Roy was the kind of guy who’d be there at your hospital bed long after everyone else had bailed out, literally standing by you to the death.



When Cohn was diagnosed with AIDS, Trump did not stand by his hospital bed. In the words of Cohn’s longtime secretary, “Donald found out about it and just dropped him like a hot potato.”

“I can’t believe he’s doing this to me,” Cohn reportedly said of Trump’s behavior. “Donald pisses ice water.”

None of this should be news to the congressional GOP. A little over a year ago, many of their party’s leading lights were shouting that Trump was a fraud and a con artist at the top of their lungs.

But, apparently, House Republicans thought that with them, Donald would be different. Last month, the president begged vulnerable GOP representatives to vote for his unpopular, draconian health-care bill. Fourteen Republicans from districts Clinton won backed the legislation. Trump threw them a party to celebrate its passage.

And then, after Trump burned through the popularity boost that legislation provided, the president went and told Senate Republicans that the House bill was “mean” and “coldhearted” — effectively endorsing the central claim of every Democratic congressional candidate’s 2018 campaign.

House Republicans can’t believe what Trump is doing to them:

In the House Ways & Means Committee markup today, there was discussion among a couple of Dems and Republican members, with a Democrat saying: “See, we told you your health care bill was mean. Now the president agrees with us.”…A number of members of Congress have told Axios that Trump and Pence lobbied the bill like nothing they’d ever seen, using superlatives such as calling it a “great bill.” Members who Trump urged to take a risk and pass the bill are now seeing him turn his back on them. One member said Trump was on the phone urging people to support it, and “for him to turn around and do this, it’s stunning. I can’t believe it.”

The president pisses ice water.