Speechgate: "Former ballet dancer and English major...." ???

[Laura PourMeADrink]

In this excerpt, the NYT is playing up this description of Meredith McIver (the person who supposedly helped Melania craft her speech) with a casual reference to her working on some of Trump's books. Master intellectual and researcher (sarcasm) Mika played this up today as well.

NY Times

It was Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser, who commissioned the speech from Mr. Scully and Mr. McConnell — and praised their draft. But Ms. Trump decided to revise it, and at one point she turned to a trusted hand: Meredith McIver, a New York City-based former ballet dancer and English major who has worked on some of Mr. Trump’s books, including “Think Like a Billionaire.” It was not clear how much of a hand Ms. McIver had in the final product, and she did not respond to an email on Tuesday.

When in reality, it looks like McIver is so much more. Although credits to McIver seem to vary depending on book website, she was listed as co-author, "with", or contributor on the following Trump books.

1. Think like a Billionaire
2. Why you want to be rich
3. Think like a champion (Contributor)
4. Trump: How to get rich (with Meredith McIver)
5. Trump: Never give up
6. Trump: The art of the deal
7. Pocket Guide to Trump
8. Trump 101 - The way to success


https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21090.Meredith_McIver
http://www.amazon.com/Meredith-McIver/e/B001ILKCEE
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/20/us/politics/melania-trump-convention-speech.html

[2naSalit]

1. What's wrong with having been a

ballet dancer and English Major? This woman is obviously an opportunist who has managed to help the master bloviated ascend to the heights of hypocrisy and fame, has nothing to do with ballet or English Major as a chosen profession, it simply shows that she has no scruples.

I am a classical vocal performer, former truck driver (well over a decade), and policy analyst (mostly federal land management) but it doesn't mean I have no scruples or sense of reality.

There's plenty of material out there showing what a opportunist for cash this person is but don't knock ballet dancers and English majors as indicators of her failings.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

2. You miss the point. NYT used those terms to describe her - not as being

unworthy professions - but to paint her as a novice in the world of authorship and publishing. Which, she is clearly not.

But, this is not about NYT, this is about the Trump bizzaro world. If McIver did indeed sloppily steer Melania wrong, what about all his books?

It's not the typical "Follow the Money" here...it's "Follow the Donald"

[malaise]

3. Will she be wife

#4?

[2naSalit]

5. Snort!

[Laura PourMeADrink]

11. Meredith McIver

Meredith McIver
Associate to Donald Trump, Co-author of "Trump: How to Get Rich"

Meredith McIver is a close associate to the world famous real estate titan and recent TV Impresario Donald Trump.

Ms. McIver co-authored the best-selling book, "Trump: How to Get Rich," which reveals the secrets of his success.

snip

Meredith McIver has been a member of The Trump Organization since September of 2001. Prior to that she worked on Wall Street. Originally from San Jose, California, Meredith started her career at age 14 as a Ford Foundation Scholar, when she began training at George Balachine's School of American Ballet. She graduated with honors from the University of Utah in English, and has worked as an editor and writer.

https://speakerpedia.com/speakers/meredith-mciver

[sarae]

26. That photo looks like it's from 1992.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

29. Or 1942 Carol Burnett.

[sarae]

31. that, too...

[2naSalit]

4. I agree to

the "Follow the Donald" thing, I just think that she has a serious lack of scruples should have been the dominant theme based on her prior work with the drumpf regime.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. I disagree. They said she worked on some of his books, and was a 'trusted hand'

and being an English major is a qualification for that. "Former ballet dancer" might look like it's saying she's a novice, but they followed it with 'English major' to show she's widely read, and would also know all the rules about plagiarism.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

9. She "worked on" most of his books - to what degree is unknown. Not familiar

with the rules/practices of giving credit though.

But, like I said, not really about NYT's choice of description...more about the fact that it looks like she must have been much more than someone who "worked on some of his books".

[RussBLib]

12. what about all his books?

You should read Jane Mayer's latest article in The New Yorker where she talks with Tony Schwartz, who ghost-wrote practically all of "The Art of the Deal". As usual, Trump just put his name on the book and didn't write hardly any of it.

Tony is feeling mucho regret at helping to build the INVINCIBLE BUSINESSMAN TRUMP.

This is a long article but worth your time.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/donald-trumps-ghostwriter-tells-all

The story was already posted on DU here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016163719

[Laura PourMeADrink]

16. Wow RBL ! Amazing stuff - Schwartz needs to be our keynote speaker !!

Then he noticed something strange: over the decades, Trump appeared to have convinced himself that he had written the book. Schwartz recalls thinking, “If he could lie about that on Day One—when it was so easily refuted—he is likely to lie about anything.”

snip

Trump, facing a crowd that had gathered in the lobby of Trump Tower, on Fifth Avenue, laid out his qualifications, saying, “We need a leader that wrote ‘The Art of the Deal.’ ” If that was so, Schwartz thought, then he, not Trump, should be running. Schwartz dashed off a tweet: “Many thanks Donald Trump for suggesting I run for President, based on the fact that I wrote ‘The Art of the Deal.’ ”

snip

But Schwartz believes that Trump’s short attention span has left him with “a stunning level of superficial knowledge and plain ignorance.” He said, “That’s why he so prefers TV as his first news source—information comes in easily digestible sound bites.” He added, “I seriously doubt that Trump has ever read a book straight through in his adult life.” During the eighteen months that he observed Trump, Schwartz said, he never saw a book on Trump’s desk, or elsewhere in his office, or in his apartment.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

30. He's on MSNBC raising all of it !!

"there's no there there. He is just transactional trying to do everything he can do to aggrandize himself"

[DonRedwood]

35. That is PR speak for

didn't finish her degree in English, is my guess. If she had the degree they would be saying "graduated from Princeton", etc. Being an "English major" means as long as she declared, she didn't have to actually take or pass a single English course. When a major coorporation hires someone to be a writer, the usual hiree is going to have a degree in journalism, English, etc. I doubt you can even find a job listing for a coorporate writer that doesn't require a degree. I was a Journalism major (for a year) but if I put that on my application to Trump or any organization, they'd be laughing as they dropped my resume into the shredder.

My guess is they are using her own biography for the information, same as they have with Melania and her made-up degree. Usually that works since most people are honest in their biographies but when you are dealing with grifters who make up a degree so they seem like a smarter person to do business with or to make the American people think you had the smarts and work-ethic to get through University it sort of falls apart. Ms McIntyre, of course, merely seems to have chosen the best way to say she took some classes in English and was a ballerina (professionally or did she just take some ballet classes)? If I can say I was a journalism major and took ballet in college (I did, in fact, take Ballet I at Rutgers under Sherry Alben of the Princeton Ballet) can I also say I was a ballerina? This is all about packaging...

That's a lot of talking to say that I think the NYT is kind of pointing out that Ms McIntyre does not have the usual resume for someone who is a coorporate writer/speechwriter. Which is fair in the business world--it's all about the sales pitch and the resume in that world!

[Darb]

6. Maybe she knows Don the Con best, and RF'd him.

Don't forget the rickroll:

[Laura PourMeADrink]

8. True dat. And, she's (MM) got him under a barrel. She probably wrote

all his books. And, he takes all the credit. If they throw her under the bus, she exposes he's practically illiterate. Who was it who just said he was probably the most intellectually incurious person they had ever met?

[Darb]

10. They want this to go away for sure.

I promise they don't mention it and will probably not answer any questions on it again. All the pubics that are on TV have the same message, blathering about what a great night it was and repeat the message ad nauseum.

Maybe something will shake loose. I don't hold much faith in that prospect.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

14. From Vanity Fair posted two hours ago...

That the Trump campaign has said it would not fire anyone for the instance speaks volumes. It could be an example of the campaign’s general eschewal of common, sensical campaign practices that would help it avoid these kinds of messes in the first place. It could be that it is too bereft of organizational infrastructure—especially in the midst of a convention that itself is proving to be difficult to pull off—to make such a swift decision. Or it could be that the mistake was made by someone un-fireable—a member so close to the Trump clan, a Trump him or herself, perhaps, that there is no way for them to exit the campaign.
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/07/melania-trump-rnc-speech-ballerina

In another article, about Coach Mike Leach

“So we’re walking by all these big buildings in New York that I’d read about in the book, and I’m thinking, what the heck, let’s call him,” Leach says.

The coach dialed information to get a number for Trump Enterprises, then called the main line, where he talked a receptionist into transferring him to Trump’s personal assistant, Meredith McIver.
http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/wsu-cougar-football/how-wsu-coach-mike-leach-and-donald-trump-developed-a-unique-friendship/

[Darb]

17. She just owned it and said sorry, my bad.

This is frickin unreal.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

18. yup...but I still don't believe that is how it went down. #bullshit

[tblue37]

22. She did not write or help write "The Art of the Deal":

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/donald-trumps-ghostwriter-tells-all

DONALD TRUMP’S GHOSTWRITER TELLS ALL:

“The Art of the Deal” made America see Trump as a charmer with an unfailing knack for business. Tony Schwartz helped create that myth—and regrets it.

SNIP

It seemed improbable that Trump’s campaign would succeed, so Schwartz told himself that he needn’t worry much. But, as Trump denounced Mexican immigrants as “rapists,” near the end of the speech, Schwartz felt anxious. He had spent hundreds of hours observing Trump firsthand, and felt that he had an unusually deep understanding of what he regarded as Trump’s beguiling strengths and disqualifying weaknesses. Many Americans, however, saw Trump as a charmingly brash entrepreneur with an unfailing knack for business—a mythical image that Schwartz had helped create. “It pays to trust your instincts,” Trump says in the book, adding that he was set to make hundreds of millions of dollars after buying a hotel that he hadn’t even walked through.

In the subsequent months, as Trump defied predictions by establishing himself as the front-runner for the Republican nomination, Schwartz’s desire to set the record straight grew. He had long since left journalism to launch the Energy Project, a consulting firm that promises to improve employees’ productivity by helping them boost their “physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual” morale. It was a successful company, with clients such as Facebook, and Schwartz’s colleagues urged him to avoid the political fray. But the prospect of President Trump terrified him. It wasn’t because of Trump’s ideology—Schwartz doubted that he had one. The problem was Trump’s personality, which he considered pathologically impulsive and self-centered.

SNIP

“I put lipstick on a pig,” he said. “I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is.” He went on, “I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.”

If he were writing “The Art of the Deal” today, Schwartz said, it would be a very different book with a very different title. Asked what he would call it, he answered, “The Sociopath.”

[lunatica]

20. OK now. Do you really mean there are pubics on TV?

[Darb]

33. Well, that was shorthand...

for pubic hairs. We are up against pubic hairs, and we all know how last century pubic hair is.

[lunatica]

34. LOL!

Definitely last century for sure!

[malaise]

13. Hence the silence

[Bluenorthwest]

15. She is or has been Trump's Personal Assistant. A very long term Trump employee.

nt

[lunatica]

19. That explains why no one has been fired

She's been with him longer than his latest wife has. Probably longer that the last 2 wives.

[tblue37]

21. _The Art of the Deal_ was ghost written by journalist Tony Schwartz. Ms. McIver was not involved.

See post #22 above.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

23. oops...guess Goodreads got it wrong

Trump: The Art of the Deal
by Donald J. Trump, Meredith McIver

[winstars]

24. Ahhh, no one has used the link below to truly "review" her books on Amazon, yet... (cough...)

http://www.amazon.com/Meredith-McIver/e/B001ILKCEE

[Koinos]

25. Trump can't fire her.

She knows too much about what he doesn't know.

[malaise]

27. Has anyone ever seen her???

[Koinos]

28. "Guardian writer Gaby Wood met McIver during an interview with Trump in 2007..."

From Slate: "Yes, Melania Speech Fall Woman Meredith McIver Is Real. Here’s Proof."

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/07/20/yes_meredith_mciver_is_a_real_person_here_s_proof.html

[Wednesdays]

32. Is it possible there is no real Meredith McIver?

That the list of credits is actually from a series of ghostwriters?

I ask this because apparently no one has seen, heard from, or interviewed Meredith McIver since the Speechgate story broke.