Meeting Donald Trump_Richard Branson

source VIRGIN website by Richard Branson

Some years ago, Mr Trump invited me to lunch for a one-to-one meeting at his apartment in Manhattan.

We had not met before and I accepted. Even before the starters arrived he began telling me about

how he had asked a number of people for help after his latest bankruptcy and how five of them were

unwilling to help. He told me he was going to spend the rest of his life destroying these five people.

He didn’t speak about anything else and I found it very bizarre. I told him I didn’t think it was the

best way of spending his life. I said it was going to eat him up, and do more damage to him than them.

There must be more constructive ways to spend the rest of your life. (Hopefully my advice didn’t

lead to him running for President!)

I was baffled why he had invited me to lunch solely to tell me this. For a moment, I even wondered

if he was going to ask me for financial help. If he had, I would have become the sixth person on his list! 

I left the lunch feeling disturbed and saddened by what I’d heard. There are a lot of frightening

things about this election; not least that policy has been pushed so far down the agenda. What concerns

me most, based upon my personal experiences with Donald Trump, is his vindictive streak, which could

be so dangerous if he got into the White House. For somebody who is running to be the leader of the

free world to be so wrapped up in himself, rather than concerned with global issues, is very worrying.

Later, I remember contrasting the lunch with a one-to-one lunch I shared with Hillary Clinton.

Here we talked about education reform, the war on drugs, women’s rights, conflicts around the globe

and the death penalty. She was a good listener as well as an eloquent speaker. As she understands

well, the President of the United States needs to understand and be engaged with wider world issues,

rather than be consumed by petty personal quarrels.