In 1973, Donald Trump and his father, Fred, were facing hard times.
The Department of Justice had just sued the pair and their family’s multimillion-dollar business, accusing them of racial discrimination by their real estate company.
The company was accused of discriminating against people of color by marking their rental applications with a “C,” and, in the words of Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio, the government “came hard on the Trump Organization.”
“Several Trump employees confessed to being instructed to divert and discourage Black apartment applicants, telling them apartments were available for rent that were not,” D’Antonio says in the above excerpt from “The Choice 2024: Harris v. Trump,” which premieres on Sept. 24.
The advice from Trump’s regular lawyers on how to handle the crisis was clear: settle the case and move on.
Donald Trump followed a different path that would shape his approach to life, business, and ultimately politics.
As this excerpt from “The Choice 2024” examines, Trump sought out Roy Cohn, Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s notorious lawyer during the “Red Scare” of the 1950s.
Cohn’s cousin, David Marcus, said in the video, “When they met, Roy told Cohn, ‘You may be guilty, but that doesn’t matter. Go after the Department of Justice. Never plead guilty.'”
“Trump was “totally fooled” by Cohn’s advice: ‘Fight them. You can beat them. Deny everything and fight,'” added The New Yorker’s Ken Auletta.
Trump, with Cohn as his lawyer, filed a $100 million countersuit against the federal government, saying, “To the best of my knowledge, neither I nor anyone in our organization has ever exhibited any discrimination or bias in relation to the rental of apartments.”
According to Cohn’s cousin Marcus, “Donald Trump was in a tight spot. There was no doubt that they were discriminating. There was no doubt that there was wrongdoing. But Roy Cohn showed him that he could turn it around just by ignoring the facts and going after the perpetrators.”
In legal terms, the counterclaims failed, and the Trumps eventually entered into a consent decree with the government in 1975 requiring them to make their properties accessible to minorities. The agreement did not include an admission of guilt.
“Roy went on the offensive and said this was a victory, that Trump was vindicated,” Marcus said. “He knew before anyone else that the trial of public opinion is often more important than the courts.”
The Choice 2024 charts a continuum from that moment to the present, showing how Cohn’s strategy in the racial discrimination lawsuit became Trump’s enduring guide for dealing with future crises: deny it all, fight back, and go on the offensive to declare victory.
“If someone attacks him, he says, he’ll attack back 10 times harder,” says Peter Baker of The New York Times. “He’s not interested in diplomacy. He’s not interested in negotiating. He’s only interested in fighting.”
For the full story, check out “The Choice 2024,” the latest installment of FRONTLINE’s election-year series “The Choice,” which has provided viewers with in-depth biographies of the U.S. presidential candidates from both major parties since 1988. This year’s edition explores the lives and personalities of presidential hopefuls Trump and Kamala Harris, drawing on interviews with the people who know the candidates best to uncover the key moments that shaped how each will lead the United States.
“The Choice 2024: Harris vs. Trump” will be available to watch in its entirety on pbs.org/frontline and the PBS app on September 24, 2024, at 7pm/6pm ET. It will premiere that night at 9pm/8pm ET on PBS stations (check your local listings) and the FRONTLINE YouTube channel, as well as on the PBS Documentaries Prime Video channel. Concurrent with the premiere, FRONTLINE will release more than 30 extended interviews conducted by filmmaker Michael Kirk and his team as part of FRONTLINE’s Transparency Project, making source material available to the public.
The Choice 2024: Harris vs. Trump is a FRONTLINE production from Kirk Documentary Group, Ltd. Directed by Michael Kirk. Producers are Michael Kirk, Mike Weiser, Vanessa Fica and Philip Bennett. Writers are Michael Kirk and Mike Weiser. Reporters are Vanessa Fica and Brooke Nelson Alexander. FRONTLINE Editor in Chief and Executive Producer is Lainie Aronson Rath.