The other thing that I wondered about before seeing Donald Trump again was why. Why in the world at age 69 and with a few billion dollars in the bank would you seek to be president? Does Trump really want the job? Hasn’t he seen how much the last two men in the Oval Office, both much younger men than he, aged over two terms? The job is a bitch. And a long campaign will inevitably unearth a lot of stuff Trump can’t possibly want to revisit: the bankruptcies, the many lawsuits. The fact that—precisely because New York real estate, not to mention the casino business, is vicious—he has made a lot of enemies.

He’s not going to win the nomination just doing live interviews with Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly from the lobby of his building.

When I ask Trump why, he says simply that the country “is going down the tubes, and I’m sick about it. And I’m sick of these politicians. So why not? Why not run?”

He sees that I’m bit puzzled, skeptical maybe, so he says, “What do you think, Bill? Do you think I can win?”

“Honestly, Donald,” I say, “on the plane over here from China I would have told you no. But what the hell do I know? I live in Shanghai.”

He laughs, and then says, “Well, we’re going to find out, aren’t we?”