Greed is Good Again
On the wall, a gold-rimmed frame held the 1984 cover of Forbes magazine—young Donald Tremp standing proudly in front of the freshly completed Tremp Tower, dressed in a sharp suit, his grin wide and radiant.
The desk calendar showed January 1st, 1984, and beside it sat a half-full glass of whiskey. The ice had long since melted.
Suddenly, Donald Tremp jolted awake, his head pounding. Just a moment ago, he had been in Mar-a-Lago in 2024, discussing campaign strategies with his advisors. Now, he was back—forty years back—in a Manhattan apartment that smelled like polished leather and ambition.
He looked down at his hands: no liver spots, no sagging skin—just the firm, powerful knuckles of a man in his prime.
“Holy s**t,” he muttered, then broke into a slow, deliberate grin. “Well, this just got interesting.”
He walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows and gazed out at the New York skyline, still untouched by the fall of the Twin Towers. Memories flooded in—his near-bankruptcy in the '90s, three failed marriages, the miraculous win in 2016, the bitter loss in 2020…
And now, he was back at the very beginning—the dawn of his legend, when everything was still up for grabs.
“Donald, what are you daydreaming about this time?”
The stern voice of Fred Tremp came from behind.
Donald turned to see his father standing at the study doorway, dressed sharply in a tailored suit, his eyes hawk-like and piercing.
Their relationship in his previous life had been… complex. Fred admired his ambition but never thought he had enough discipline. Now, Donald had the chance to rewrite all that.
“Nothing much. Just thinking about this year’s investment strategies,” he said with a casual shrug, though his eyes were no longer those of the impulsive 37-year-old his father remembered.
“Investment strategies?” Fred scoffed. “How about you clean up that mess in Atlantic City first? You nearly blew the whole cash flow last year.”
Donald didn’t argue. He just smiled.
This time, he wouldn’t make the same mistakes.
Three days later , Tremp sat in his office, a copy of The Wall Street Journal spread before him. The front-page headline screamed:
“IBM Launches Personal Computer; Stocks Surge.”
He picked up the phone and dialed an old friend on Wall Street.
“Carl, I need you to do two things for me,” he said, voice firm.
“First, sell off all the casino bonds we’re holding.
Second, go all-in on Apple and Microsoft.”
There was silence on the other end. “Donald, have you lost your mind? Apple’s practically bankrupt!”
“Just do what I say,”Tremp said, a smirk playing on his lips.
“This time, I’m going to show the world the real meaning of The Art of the Deal.”
1988, Republican National Convention.
Trump sat in a private VIP box, watching George H. W. Bush accept the party’s nomination. In his past life, he had considered running that year—but backed off.
This time…
“Four years from now, I’ll be the one on that stage,” he murmured to the man beside him—Roger Stone, the soon-to-be Fox News kingmaker.
Stone raised an eyebrow. “Are you serious?”
“More serious than I’ve ever been.”Tremp lifted a glass of champagne and drank it down.
“And this time, I won’t screw it up.”
