Donald Trump didn't invent his playbook. He learned it from a gay man. Roy Cohn was the chief counsel for Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, the man behind the Red Scare witch hunts that destroyed hundreds of careers by branding people as communists. Cohn personally helped purge gay and lesbian employees from government jobs at the same time. He spent the next few decades as New York's most feared fixer, representing mob bosses, the Catholic Archdiocese, and Studio 54 with equal enthusiasm. Then he met a young real estate developer named Donald Trump and taught him everything he knew. Never admit defeat. Attack everyone who comes at you. Lie without hesitation. Use the press like a weapon. Cohn also introduced Trump to Roger Stone, who would later run his first presidential campaign. Cohn was gay. Openly, flamboyantly gay to anyone paying attention. He summered in Provincetown. He brought his young blond boyfriends to conservative fundraisers. He was what Stone delicately called "a man who liked having sex with men." He also spent his entire career making life hell for other gay people. When AIDS hit, Cohn got sick. He insisted until his last breath that he had liver cancer. His death certificate told a different story, listing dementia and HIV infection as contributing factors. He died in 1986, disbarred, broke, and owing millions to the IRS. Trump had already stopped taking his calls. He didn't come to the funeral. According to a book by Wall Street Journal reporters, Trump had Mar-a-Lago fumigated after Cohn visited once his HIV status became known. The man who made Trump everything he is died of AIDS, abandoned by the movement he spent his life serving, and dumped by the protege he created. His AIDS Memorial Quilt panel reads: "Roy Cohn: Bully. Coward. Victim." He was all three.