The former press magnate lauds the president in his newest book – but some are wondering if he’s merely angling for a pardon

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Since launching his bid for America’s top office, Donald Trump has figured prominently in Canada’s national conversation; he’s been called a fascist, and a bully, and was unanimously condemned by parliamentarians after he lashed out at the prime minister, Justin Trudeau.

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But one voice has consistently lauded the US president: Conrad Black, the man who once controlled one of the world’s largest English-language newspaper empires.

From his home in Toronto, Black has emerged as one of the president’s most outspoken supporters, arguing America’s 45th president is exactly what the US needed.

“I think he’s done quite well,” said Black, rattling off a list of claims that have been widely challenged – or proven to be untrue. “I think you would have to say that he’s cut illegal immigration by 50%, he’s certainly produced economic progress and has dealt effectively with the greatest single foreign policy issue so far: North Korea.”

Such assertions reflect the breezy, positive spin that is at the heart of Black’s latest book, Donald J Trump: A President Like No Other.

Black argues that Trump will be ultimately judged as a successful president who lowered taxes, eased fears of a recession and unemployment and adopted a foreign policy of “prudent and effective realism”.

It’s a largely sympathetic take on a president whose disapproval ratings hover above 50% and whose administration has polarised American society with his ban on travellers from several Muslim-majority countries, forcible separation of migrant families and trade wars with longstanding American allies.



The jarring disconnect has prompted speculation that Black, who in 2007 was sentenced to prison in the US for fraud and obstruction of justice, is angling for a pardon from Trump.

Black is quick to brush off the suggestion. “This irritating mindreading by people who don’t know me, this imputation of motives, I think, is discreditable,” he said. “There is, at this point, no thought of a pardon whatsoever.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Conrad Black leaves a federal building in Chicago on 10 December 2007 after sentencing in his racketeering and fraud trial. Photograph: Jerry Lai/AP

He instead pointed to biographies he has previously written on Franklin D Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, and described Trump – whom he has known for 25 years – as the ideal subject.

“He’s an extremely controversial and highly publicised person,” Black said. “Lots of people see things that they on balance like, but many people are convinced that he is a terrible and a dangerous person. So the truth has to be in there somewhere.”

Black insisted that his take on Trump was not without its criticisms. “He’s not always someone who performs in a way that I myself would consider to be optimal, but on balance he has been quite clear about what his objectives are – and he’s pursuing them quite successfully.”

To hear Black tell it, Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran deal – which was strongly criticised by key US allies – was “absolutely necessary”.

The tariffs launched on allies are a “temporary expedient” as Trump tackles trade imbalances.

Trump’s justification of “national security” to impose tariffs on Canada – America’s closest ally – is just “good political histrionics”.

He dismisses any notion that Trump – who has repeatedly conflated immigration with crime and terrorism – is a racist. The idea that a man who has been accused of assault and harassment by 20 women is a misogynist is “rubbish”, he said. “He was the first person in the United States to have a female manager of a large project, in the case of the Trump Tower.”

And the Mueller investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and Trump’s campaign – which has so far yielded nearly three dozen indictments and five guilty pleas? A “complete failure”.

Canadians would not demean themselves with anything so inane as the London Trump​​ balloon Conrad Black

Black, who was born in Montreal, does side with the many in Canada who disapproved of Trump’s personal attack on Trudeau, but he said he’s found that many Canadians do like the US president. “Canadians would not demean themselves with anything so inane as the London Trump balloon,” he argued.

Black’s take on Trump is rooted in what he believes was happening in the US before he took office. “The trend was obvious, the whole economy was flatlined,” he said. “Scores of millions of people felt acute economic insecurity.”



He described Trump – who has been criticised for not explicitly denouncing the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and white supremacists and who has befriended dictators such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un – as a centrist.

“Essentially he is trying to provide a return to dynamic growth and satisfactory government provided by a centre or slightly right of center government,” said Black.

That mission has been complicated by media, Black asserted. “He’s run against a barrage of media hostility unlike anything since Watergate,” he said.

It’s a statement seemingly at odds with a man who once ran a media empire that stretched from the UK’s Daily Telegraph to the Jerusalem Post. Does Black not believe that it is the role of media to hold the powerful to account?

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The question gives Black pause. “Of course I accept and proclaim the duty of the media to call it as they see it, but I was always myself an upholder of maintaining the distinction between reporting and comment,” he said. “And employing the normal conscientious professional standards to be accurate.”

While Black acknowledged that it might be too early to pass definitive judgment on Trump’s tenure as president, he emphasised the billionaire businessman’s trajectory from celebrity to the White House, describing it as “a series of astonishing feats.

“I perfectly understand people who find his shtick tiresome or even frankly insufferably annoying … I understand why some people don’t like it,” he said. “But nobody can say that he’s just a boob and an idiot who’s never accomplished anything. You can’t say that.”