An old man, hunched over his cane, rain streaked across his glasses stood listening to me talk to Rice. His father had been a friend of Fred Trump—“a very humble man, you could never tell he was a millionaire”—and he didn’t want to give me his name. Trump wasn’t his first choice, but he felt for him. “If you’re a Republican, they’ll dig everything up on you, everything!” he said, complaining to that it was hard to be a Republican in this town.
He hadn’t heard about Friday’s tape, and, after hearing a brief summary, his face stretched into disbelief. He looked away, seeming pained. After a moment, he said, “The Bible says, ‘All men are sinners.’” He looked at the shiny Trump Tower lobby just on the other side of the doors. “You know, they say Trump is a racist, but if he was a racist, why would he have these, these, these people working here?” He gestured with one crooked hand at two black security guards. He shook his head. “They’ll dig up everything!”