THE STORY BEHIND DONALD TRUMP'S PURCHASE OF JONATHAN WAXMAN

"I can’t blame Mr. Waxman for dreaming he would bring Jams back from the grave one day.
But after a few meals at the Jams that returned to Manhattan in August,
I also can’t help wishing it had stayed there."

Pete Wells in The New York Times
November 11, 2015

Ever the savvy opportunist, Donald Trump, on the heels of another self-proclaimed GOP debate victory, has opened Trump’s Jams in the space abruptly abandoned by Jonathan Waxman earlier today.

DONALD TRUMP: Welcome to Trump’s Jams, where everything on the menu is absolutely the best of whatever it is. And some of these things I don’t even know what they are, because I don’t eat this crap but I know you’re absolutely going to enjoy it. What are you having?

GUEST: Can we see a menu?

There is no menu. You’ll eat what we bring you.

Then how do we know…?

That’s a very very good question. You know who my chef is? Jonathan Waxman.

Yes, we know…

Huge! Used to be huge! Back in the 80s, which is a very long time ago. He used to own this restaurant, but then I bought him –

You bought his restaurant?

No, him. I bought him. Everything’s negotiable and now he’s mine, though I’m not sure where I’m going to put him yet. He tried, unsuccessfully, to reopen Jams and failed – you know what failed means? It means not succeeding. And a “Satisfactory” rating is an epic fail – so now we’re going to make Jams great again.

So this isn’t Jams?

No, it’s Jams. But now it's Trump's Jams. Everything’s the same but the name because, as you know – well, I don’t know if you know but everybody else does – that putting my name on anything means instant success. I’ve done this all over the world, and now I’m doing it here at Jams. I own Waxman now, as well as a number of his people who are now my people – I don’t know who they are; they seem very nice, though some of them will have to go back – and there are some people out there who would, not me, I would never call him this, but there are some people out there who would call him my bitch or my kitchen bitch or whatever it is. I would never call him that, but it’s out there. So now he’s back in the kitchen doing something and you’re going to absolutely love it. Trust me.

So there’s really no menu?

I’ll tell you this: there’s probably some kind of meat involved. Meat’s very important. Very American. And let me tell you something: first of all, my cows are the world’s finest cows and many people, experts, say that my cows are amazing. Amazing. Okay? Every one of my cows is au pair raised, so they never had to lift a finger their entire lives. Never had to work, never had to do anything really but just eat, sleep and take a crap every once in a while. Unlike horses which we don’t eat because we revere them as these massive productive worker beasts out there in society every day pulling, plowing, jumping over little short fences or whatever they do, my cows live off of what are essentially entitlements and then are eaten by people like you.

How does it come?

That’s a very, very…I’m glad you asked that because every one of our dishes comes on some sort of a plate. These plates come from all over the world and a lot of, a whole lot of really, really knowledgeable people who know about these things – I’m not going to name names but let’s just say these are really smart, some of the world’s smartest, Nobel Prize level people – say that my plates are the absolutely most amazing plates they’ve ever seen in their lives. In fact, we don’t call them china – I don’t know if they really are from China or not – but as a matter of principle we don’t call our plates that.

What do you call them?

What do I call them? Israel. I’m joking, but not really. I love Israel. Who doesn’t love Israel? In fact, I just got off the phone with my friend Bibi Netanyahu. And you know what he told me? Absolutely serious. He said he knows this restaurant will be a monster success now that I’m behind it. Because that’s what I do. Okay? The prime minister of, highly-respected, prime minister of the State of Israel blessed this place based on the fact that my name’s on it. In fact, I have some of my Jewish friends do the actual slaughtering of my cows, so there’s no pain involved – for the cows, not my Jewish friends – they just march in, one two three, the next thing you know it’s dinner time. Again, just to be clear, I’m talking about the cows. This slaughtering we do, it’s a tradition. Goes way back. Now you may ask, how did this tradition get started? I’ll tell you: I don’t know. But it’s a tradition, and the Jews are very very good at this, and that’s why I hire them to do all my slaughtering and I do this with Jews all over the world. Here comes your food.

But we haven’t ordered yet.

Why do you keep interrupting everybody? Look, you don’t even know what you want. Okay? Right away I could tell just by looking at you. All these people here? None of them know what they want. That’s why we don’t have menus. A waste of paper. I do all the ordering because you people don’t even know what you want until I tell you you want it. And I’ll let you in on a little secret: a lot of people say – I’m not saying this, I don’t really know, but a lot of people are saying that this food that I’m serving you right now – not sure what it is but it’s very classy, very elegant, on a plate – they’re saying that it’s really, really fantastic.

So shut up and eat. And thanks for dining at Trump’s Jams.