Mark Singer, the great New Yorker portraitist, wrote one of my all-time favorite profiles, a 1993 study of Ricky Jay, who performs magic in the same sense that Benjamin Franklin flew kites. It’s the invisible energy being conducted that makes all the difference. Somehow Singer escorted everything important into the light.

Another excellent piece he penned that decade was his 1997 examination of Donald Trump who was then a needy pseudo-plutocrat before transitioning into a Birther, and, finally, during this Baba Booey of an election season, Bull Connor as a condo salesman, a mocker of American POWs and the disabled. Even 20 years ago, the writer recognized his subject as a performance artist constantly on a campaign, though not yet a political one.

In a Vice Q&A, Harry Cheadle questions Singer about his close encounters with the hideous hotelier back in the day. The opening:

Question:

What were your initial impressions of Donald Trump when you met him in 1996?

Mark Singer:

After I first met him face-to-face, I came back to the office and said, “Wow, this guy is a performance artist. This is a persona I have to deal with, not a regular-type person with whom there is the usual give and take between a writer and a subject.” There was an artifice that was present throughout that was obvious to me from the get-go. This is a person who really choses to be a persona rather than to live the sort of unmediated life you and I might prefer.

Question:

He never dropped that persona of all the hours you’ve spent with him?

Mark Singer:

Trump’s never not in character. He’s got a problem now because that persona that he has been cultivating is obviously not useful to him if he wants to win the election. (This presupposes that he actually does want to win the election.)

Question:

Is that persona you saw basically the same one everyone sees on TV now?

Mark Singer:

This is a different manifestation of the same person. The main thing that Trump did that surprised me, between 1997 and now, was birtherism. I couldn’t see how that served his interest, even if you assume that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. I just couldn’t get over that he was engaged in this.

I didn’t know that Trump was a racist. I’m not an idiot, but I didn’t really see it before 2011 [when he accused Barack Obama of faking his birth certificate]—and then it was obvious to me that it is indeed part of what motivates him. I assume that there had to be some other motive and to this day I can’t tell you what it is, other than some function of this person’s incredible insecurity.•