4 interesting Trump moments from The Washington Post's new book on the Republican nominee

The first few opening days of the Trump Taj Mahal, the Manhattan billionaire's massive Atlantic City casino that opened in 1990, were disastrous.

Jack O'Donnell, who was president of the Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino and later had to focus on the Taj Mahal project after three fellow executives died in a helicopter crash, revealed details of the chaotic days to the Post.

It began after Trump first learned in the casino's opening week that the state gaming regulators had ordered the slot machines remain closed because the casino did not have a large enough "hard count room" where the coins and tokens are sorted at the end of a night.

"Jack, I'm at the Taj," Trump said in O'Donnell's account. "I got big f------ problems over here ... I've been in meetings with the state all morning. They're not going to let me open. I've got a bunch of f------ idiots down here ... You have to come down here and straighten this out ... I'm going to fire all these a-------."

Once O'Donnell arrived at the scene, he found out that Trump had been warned previously about the size of the room from Deno Marino, the deputy director of New Jersey's Casino Control Commission.

Marino made an exception to to rule, allowing the counters to work in the smaller room by opening up a steel door to let cool air flow in.

When the counters finished that night's count of the coins and tokens, the tally was $220,000 short of what the initial count was from the slot machines. It was the biggest mess Marino had seen in the eleven casinos he saw open prior to the Taj Mahal.

After that descrepency, the slots had to stay shut throughout that day and most of the next. Later that day, a worker noticed that the steel door was propped open by a large canvas bag.

It contained the $220,000 in missing tokens.

The room was later enlarged.

When Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was running for a Senate seat in New York during the 2000 election, Trump was taking pictures alongside her at a big fundraiser for the state Democratic committee inside of the midtown Manhattan Trump Tower.

Trump had agreed to hold the 2000 fundraiser for Clinton after being asked by New York State Democratic Committee chairwoman Judith Hope.

In an interview with the Post for the book, Trump wouldn't say whether he voted for Clinton in the election.

"I felt it was an obligation to get along, including with the Clintons and including with a lot of other people," he said. "It was very important for me to get along with politicians in my business."

Trump said his friendships are "not friends like perhaps other people have friends" when asked by The Post about people he's close with.

"Well, it’s an interesting question," Trump said. "Most of my friendships are business-related because those are the only people I meet. The people I meet, really, I guess I could say socially, when you go out to a charity event or something. ... I have people that I haven’t spoken to in years, but I think they’re friends."

Trump then went off the record to name a few friends. He dropped the names of three men he's done business with who he's only rarely seen in recent years.

"I mean, I think I have a lot of friends," he said. "But they’re not friends like perhaps other people have friends, where they’re together all the time and they go out to dinner all the time."