When you’re trying to give life lessons and encouragement to young boys, is retelling of a story of a man who got rich and married the wrong woman necessary? That’s a story to be told by parents – PB/TK
The Origin of Trump’s Weird Sex Yacht Anecdote in His Boy Scout Speech – By Ruth Graham / July 25 2017
President Trump cursed mildly, taunted President Obama, and reminisced at length about Nov. 8 (“that incredible night with the maps”) while speaking to a crowd of Boy Scouts in West Virginia on Monday night. But one of the strangest passages in the speech at the Scouts’ annual National Jamboree was an anecdote about Trump seeing the real estate developer William Levitt at a party hosted by another developer, Steve Ross. It’s the kind of story Trump loves to tell, but is it true?
Levitt was the creator of midcentury housing developments known for affordable and nearly identical houses. The original Levittown, on Long Island, was popular among returning World War II veterans, and notorious for its refusal to accept applications from anyone other than whites. For Trump, however, Levitt’s story is meaningful primarily as an illustration of what happens when a great businessman makes the fatal error of “losing momentum,” which I guess he thinks is a good lesson for Boy Scouts to learn.
In his speech on Monday, Trump rambled his way through a summary of Levitt’s career and personal life: His spectacular rise, the sale of his company to a New York conglomerate, his purchase of a yacht, his ensuing “very interesting life” (“You’re Boy Scouts so I’m not going to tell you what he did”), his repurchase of the company, and ultimately his bankruptcy. Years later, Trump’s story goes, he saw William Levitt, former titan of real estate, at a cocktail party.
Continue to slate.com article: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/07/25/what_was_that_sex_yacht_story_trump_told_the_boy_scouts.html
