Donald Trump is aggressive in court, but he tends to back down once you hit him back, according to the former president's biographer, who beat a $5 billion lawsuit over financial allegations.
Tim O'Brien, who spent massive amounts of time with Trump before writing TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald, appeared on MSNBC on Sunday to discuss Trump's current legal affairs. The host noted that O'Brien was intimately familiar with Trump's legal team, and asked for his thoughts on their strategies.
The host said, "You have direct experience with the Trump legal team as a legal opponent. Trump sued you and your publisher for $5 billion over a book you wrote about him in 2005. What did you learn from that experience about his legal tactics?"
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O'Brien responded that he thinks Trump thought he "was going to go away." The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed.
"I think he thought my publisher was going to go away. He did not sue the New York Times at the time because he knew I'd get free representation from the New York Times and I think he thought that my publisher and I would roll over, which we did not," he explained. "I think Trump actually doesn't like to see things through when he gets deeply into confrontation most of the time because he is a classic bully. I think if you push back on him, he backs down."
He further claimed that Trump is known to not pay his attorneys.
"He often stiffs his lawyers when the bills come due and he tends to draw people to him who are interested in the publicity value of representing him," he said, noting that those people are "willing to go along with the fact that he is a nightmare of a client to work with."
But this time could be different, if Trump chooses to listen to his counsel.
"In this case, he has good lawyers. This is not the typical array of lawyers you see next to him. But at the end of the day, Donald Trump does not listen to anyone anyway. He does not take advice from anyone else most of the time."
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