Video: Mark Singer on the Perils of Profiling Donald Trump

In 1997, before Donald Trump’s current bid for the Presidency was even a twinkle in the G.O.P. electorate’s eye, the New Yorker staff writer Mark Singer wrote a Profile of the rich kid turned real-estate showboat. A number of his observations from the time are disturbingly resonant now: for instance, that “his unique talent—being ‘Trump’ or, as he often referred to himself, ‘the Trumpster,’ looming ubiquitous by reducing himself to a persona—exempted him from introspection.” Trump didn’t like the piece.