David Radler remembers the phone call from Donald Trump sometime around the year 2000. Trump said he was out on the street sizing up the old Sun-Times building, which stood on the north bank of the river on the east side of Wabash. Not that Trump had any interest in the Sun-Times building itself, but as he told Radler, it occupied the best site in the city. “I want to do a deal,” said Trump.
Back then, says Radler, there were two Donald Trumps. “There was ‘the Donald,’ who was what you’re probably seeing a lot now, and there was the Donald Trump who was a serious businessman. I saw the other one—’the Donald’ would sign autographs on dollar bills when we were walking in the streets of Chicago. But the real Donald Trump was a really formidable businessman.”
“Probably, sure,” says Radler. “But he was the local candidate.”
