From http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-business-philosophy-from-the-art-of-the-deal-2015-6. Emphasis is mine:
"I never get too attached to one deal or one approach," Trump writes. "For starters, I keep a lot of balls in the air, because most deals fall out, no matter how promising they seem at first. In addition, once I've made a deal, I always come up with at least a half dozen approaches to making it work, because anything can happen, even to the best-laid plans."Trump says he's not afraid to blur reality to utilize leverage. "When the board of Holiday Inn was considering whether to enter into a partnership with me in Atlantic City, they were attracted to my site because they believed my construction was farther along than that of any other potential partner."
"In reality," he writes, "I wasn't that far along, but I did everything I could, short of going to work at the site myself, to assure them that my casino was practically finished. My leverage came from confirming an impression they were already predisposed to believe."
"I play to people's fantasies," he writes. "People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That's why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular."
And what Trump said about a failed deal:
I always go into the deal anticipating the worst," he writes. "If you plan for the worst - if you can live with the worst - the good will always take care of itself.""The only time in my life I didn't follow that rule was with the USFL [the defunct United States Football League]. I bought a losing team in a losing league on a long shot. It almost worked, through our antitrust suit, but when it didn't, I had no fallback. The point is that you can't be too greedy."
Get into deals that you can afford to recover from if things go poorly, and know when the opportunity cost for making a small deal is lower than had you not made a deal at all.
So if he lives what he says in and about The Art of the Deal, he must have a fallback for the wall deal - he's just not telling you what it is. And, he admits to overselling and hyping to close the deal.
And finally, I leave you with this:
"You can't con people, at least not for long," Trump writes. "You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you can't deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on"
He may be playing you, and you may not catch on until he is in the White House, but what good will it do to find out then? After all, the deal for your vote will be long since closed by that point...
To that I say, I saw Pavarotti live, twice, and both times, he was nervous and off the beat of the music. But he was still better than any other tenor I've ever heard, before or since. Similarly, Trump is operating in a range most people could never touch, imagine or even comprehend. He is a human being who makes mistakes, but he is an uniquely talented human being who has put his entire life on the line here, and the ingratitude of people who simply dismiss what he has to offer without really investigating it is breathtaking. It's like the gay people who say "Jesus never said gay marriage is wrong," but hve never read the rest of the Bible, in which the entire rest of the context makes it clear why He never even needed to mention it.
The thing about Turmp is, most people who say he's never done anything have never looked at his full context, his long, varied career and accomplishments. They just repeat talking points traded around as words on web sites, and quotes taken out of context.
Go to the web site for his business and take a look at the dozens of towers in several countries containing thousands of income-producing residences and offices, as well as 20,000 jobs to maintain them, and that's just the towers. There are also resorts, golf courses, retail stores, restaurants, merchandise, 15 best-selling books and that's not even counting the media interests and sports involvements, the vast majority of which have been very successful. To read this Forum, you would think that his only building that has had problems, the one in Atlantic City, was the only thing he'd ever done besides the Apprentice, and that the Apprentice was a total failure, when in fact it was a top-rated show for ten years.
What do you snipers and snarkmeisters want? Business does not go in a straight line. Failure is necessary to success, and a couple of misses among his many, many hits have strengthened his ability to deal with difficulties. Being able to roll with the punches is a way to keep DC from continuing to be the calcified, paralyzed, fossilized slush fund for corruptible do-nothings.
You always have to consider the possibility that a candidate is not being honest which I hope that voters will do their best to sort out the facts about who they want to elect. Many Cruz supporters talk glowingly about him as being the true conservative etc. But no one is perfect. Hopefully the Cruz supporters as well as supporters of the other candidates will make an effort to look at the possible flaws in their chosen candidates.
As far as Trump, he thinks big and he knows that he may not be able to reach all of his goals but I think it is in his nature to try his very best to achieve what he has set out to do. I think we will get the best “deal” on the wall, illegal immigration, the muslim threat and keeping jobs in America. If he cannot get 100% he will strive to get as close to it as possible.