Russell Simmons is frustrated with President Donald Trump and he put down his grievances in a letter to his former friend.
In an open letter published by the New York Daily News, the mogul said that he found Trump’s response to the events in Charlottesville as “shocking.”
After laying out the ways Trump has shown that he is an open guy — from helping women of color in his pageants to welcoming jews into his country clubs when others were turning them away — Simmons says he believes that same kind-hearted man was still exists somewhere.
“That was the Donald I called friend,” he wrote. “That is the Donald I know. Where is he now? I have to believe he is still in there, somewhere.”
Simmons has known Trump for 30 years as part of the New York City’s movers and shakers. And though he tells Trump he has a chance to change the way his presidency is moving, time is ticking and Trump needs to think about his legacy. The Trump administration has been defined by constant controversy and chaos.
“Is this the legacy you want to leave behind? Your children’s legacy and your grandchildren’s legacy? On the road you are on, old friend, the Trump name will come to be regarded in American history as a wannabe dictator who surrounded himself with bigots, white supremacists and money-hungry wolves.”
He added: “If you do not change your course immediately, you will go down in history as the great divider, the destroyer of the environment and the antithesis of everything we as Americans have fought so hard to call ours.”
Hopefully, Trump can hear his former friend.