That Time Donald Trump Boasted Of Reading Philip Roth
President Obama awards Philip Roth the 2010 National Medal of Arts. Image by Getty Images
Among his fans, the late Philip Roth boasted Zadie Smith, Saul Bellow, the Library of America, and just about every awards committee save for the one named after Alfred Nobel. Roth could also have counted two presidents who enjoyed his work; Barack Obama, who awarded Roth with the National Humanities Medal, and, apparently, Donald Trump. In a recently resurfaced letter, published in 2005 on September 11, the future president Trump excoriates a New Yorker essay written about him by Mark Singer and published in a collection entitled “Character Studies.” “Most writers want to be successful,” Trump wrote. “Some writers even want to be good writers. I’ve read John Updike, I’ve read Orhan Pamuk, I’ve read Philip Roth. When Mark Singer enters their league, maybe I’ll read one of his books.” Roth was apparently unimpressed. In an interview with The New Yorker, Roth referred to Trump as “an ignorant con man” with a “vocabulary of seventy-seven words that is better called Jerkish than English.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Dive In
-
Culture Should Diaspora Jews be buried in Israel? A rabbi responds
-
Culture Is this heaven or is it New Jersey? 9 innings of the Jewish-American pastime
-
Culture How one Jewish woman fought the Nazis — and helped found a new Italian republic
-
Culture Everything you need to know about every Pope Leo — even the antisemitic Leo and the one with the elephant
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Ye debuts ‘Heil Hitler’ music video that includes a sample of a Hitler speech
- 2
Opinion It looks like Israel totally underestimated Trump
- 3
Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
- 4
Fast Forward Student suspended for ‘F— the Jews’ video defends himself on antisemitic podcast
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture Should Diaspora Jews be buried in Israel? A rabbi responds
-
Fast Forward In first Sunday address, Pope Leo XIV calls for ceasefire in Gaza, release of hostages
-
Fast Forward Huckabee denies rift between Netanyahu and Trump as US actions in Middle East appear to leave out Israel
-
Fast Forward Federal security grants to synagogues are resuming after two-month Trump freeze
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.