A former Trump Organization executive vice president says Trump ‘could be a better negotiator if his ego didn’t get in the way’

Trump Tower had just opened and “The Art of the Deal” three years from publication when 38-year-old Donald Trumpsuggested he could negotiate Russian arms control better than Ronald Reagan. “It would take an hour-and-a-half to learn everything there is to learn about missiles,” Trump told The Washington Post in 1984. It was all about dealmaking prowess. “You either have it, or you don’t,” he said. Before there was much talk of being a personal brand, Trump had landed on his: the consummate, swashbuckling, never-lose negotiator. It was an image he cultivated in the New York tabloids and later on reality TV, repeating it so often that, to his supporters, perception became reality. Now, as he zigzags the country for Republican candidates, from Florida to Alaska, Trump is exhorting voters to again embrace him as an unqualified success in a midterm election that has become a referendum on his presidency and his record as a dealmaker. An examination of Trump’s dealmaking, both in his time in the White House and…