I remember when I first decided Donald Trump was a loathsome figure. It was the end of the 30 for 30 on the rise and fall of the USFL, a rival spring football league that lasted for three years before Donald Trump single-handedly ran it into the ground. How did he do this? He bought into the league to own the New Jersey Generals in the second year. He then started competing for influence with the most influential owner in the league, John Bassett of the Tampa Bay Bandits. Trump wanted to move the USFL to fall in order to directly compete with the NFL; Bassett didn't. Bassett's health started failing from cancer, leading to Trump being able to strong-arm his will over the other owners. Trump also had the USFL start a lawsuit against the NFL for monopolistic practices.
Predictably, the move to fall was a disaster. The USFL had to win a huge settlement in the lawsuit in order to survive. They won the lawsuit, but the jury perceived it as a scheme by Trump to force a merger with the NFL (Trump has long been known for his desire to own an NFL franchise). So they awarded them a settlement of $3. In the fucking 80s, Americans were wise enough to how slimy a con artist Trump has always been to screw him over. Fast forward thirty years, the hooting swine view him as a messianic figure. That's America in a nutshell.
The documentarians actually interviewed Trump for the documentary. When they started to imply he was responsible for the league's failure at the end, he as usual got extremely offended and stormed out, calling the USFL "small potatoes", which became the title of the documentary. And that little episode is Trump's character in a nutshell. Prickly, petty, easily offended, prone to running businesses into the ground, and completely denying any responsibility for those failures.
