Advice From A Friend

Howard Stern, 2016

Quit now, while you’re ahead.

Sometimes, life comes to us unannounced, but not unexpectedly. At other times, we’re stupefied by what occurs… even though, perhaps, we shouldn’t be.

Our friends – the ones who tell us things we don’t often want to hear, such as telling us “NO!”, are the very ones to whom we often ought be listening.

Here’s one such story.

“He sat down at my table and we were talking.

“People love you. They leave you the f— alone. They know you from television. What the f— are you doing with your life?”

“I still don’t know why he wants it.

“Listen, when you’ve got that great a life, and you’re 70 years old, what do you think you got left?”

“Now, for the next four years of his life — and you don’t know how long you’re going to live — he’s got to sit there and deal with people’s f*cking anger.

“Can he give the people what he promised them? Can he really change the economy? Can he really change America? You know this is like a barge. And if things go wrong — not even because of his own fault — and the economy starts to falter, then you’re everybody’s f*cking scumbag. Everyone’s like, ‘F*ck him.’

”Why would you want that for the last 10 good summers of your life? I don’t get it. And I said it to him, ‘Don’t do this to yourself.’”

“I remember thinking to myself, I don’t want him running for f—ing president.

“We have all these tapes. I said this is going to destroy the friendship because they’re going to use this s— against you. They’re going to fucking drag you through — I said, ‘Why do you want this?’”

“I have a different theory: I think NBC was f—ing with him on ‘The Apprentice’ deal. They were going to lower his pay.

“I’m telling you the truth, listen to me. They were going to f— with him on the contract.

“He said, ‘You know what I’ll do, I’ll run for president. Even if I don’t win, I’ll announce, it’ll up my game, and I’ll get a better deal.’ Which is a smart move.”

“I truly think the biggest shock in all of this is to Donald Trump.

“Because I think it was more of a, ‘Hey!’ a publicity kind of thing. ‘I’ll get my name out there. I’ll see what happens, we’ll have some fun.’”

“I don’t know that he could’ve imagined that this could’ve been the outcome.”

–– Howard Stern, on The Howard Stern Show, on speaking face-to-face with longtime friend Donald J. Trump, and advising him to cease his bid for the Presidency

A year later, Stern interviewed with CNN and reiterated essentially the same thing.

“I personally wish that he had never run, I told him that, because I actually think this is something that is gonna be detrimental to his mental health too, because, he wants to be liked, he wants to be loved. He wants people to cheer for him.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be a healthy experience. And by the way, he’s now on this anti-Hollywood kick. He loves Hollywood. First of all, he loves the press. He lives for it. He loves people in Hollywood. He only wants hobnob with them. All of this hatred and stuff directed towards him. It’s not good for him. It’s not good. There’s a reason every president who leaves the office has grey hair.”

“I like Donald very much personally. I was shocked when he decided to run for president, and even more shocked that sort of, people took it seriously.

“I remember saying to him when he announced his presidency, I remember being quite amazed, because I remember him being for Hillary Clinton.

“And I remember him being very – I mean he was pro-abortion. So the new Donald Trump kind of surprised me.

“I think it started out as like a kinda cool, fun thing to do in order to get a couple more bucks out of NBC for The Apprentice, I actually do believe that.

“He just wanted a couple more bucks out of NBC, and that is why Donald is calling for voter fraud investigations. He’s pissed he won. He still wants Hillary Clinton to win. He’s so f—ing pissed, he’s hoping that he can find some voter fraud and hand it over to Hillary.”

Trump’s presidency is a prime example of the adage

“Be careful what you wish for… you might get it.”