The business reporter that Trump liked

Thomas Peele of the San Jose Mercury News about Pat Jenkins, a Newark Star-Ledger business reporter whom Donald Trump liked.

Peele writes, “Pat knew little about business, earnings sheets, market shares. One day his biker jacket stayed home. He wore a suit. Pat looked extremely out-of-place in suits. ‘Casino Control Commission meeting,’ he said.

“The next day his phone rang. ‘Oh, hi Donald,’ Pat said.

“‘I nearly spat out coffee. There was only one Donald, and few called him Donald. Soon Pat guffawed as Trump held court.  When Trump called me, always to complain, there were just bad words.

“‘What the hell?’ I said when Pat hung up.

“‘We hit it off yesterday.’ Before Pat became a business reporter, Trump treated him like the rest of us. Now they were BFFs?

“Trump called several times a week. Pat’s just-the-facts Ledger reporting style served him. He was masterful at never adding innuendo, or attitude, or his own voice to a story. Everything went right down the middle. It was all Trump could handle.”

Read more here.