The first time I met Donald Trump, he told me he wanted to be like Jerry Lewis.

This goes back to the early 1980s. I was working on my first job in New York, as a reporter for United Press International. It was a time when real estate stories were very hot, and I was dispatched to interview some of the local big names.

First came an elderly and cranky Manhattan legend named Harry Helmsley. In my extreme innocence, I asked him if he had ever thought about using his development genius to build housing for the poor.

“Why the hell would I do that?” he retorted.

It was all downhill from there. Nevertheless, my editors sent me out again, this time to talk to Trump. He was then the new boy from Queens who’d renovated and glitzified a fading midtown hotel. I asked him exactly the same question.