If a year ago someone told me I would be an advocate of Donald Trump, I would have laughed, because everyone knew he was a joke with a toupee. But on August 27, 2015, at a rally in Greenville, South Carolina, when Mary Margaret Bannister pulled his hair, we learned he does not wear a wig.

And in researching my upcoming book, Trump The Press, I learned he is no joke. He has developed the leadership skills needed to lead the free world.

In December 2014, Peter Economy of Inc. magazine wrote, “The Top 10 Skills Every Great Leader Needs to Succeed.” Trump has them all.

1. Inspires and motivates others.

My favorite example is Jim Herman, who at 38 won his first PGA tournament on April 3, 2016. Herman tried for years to make the PGA but gave up on his dreams a decade ago, and settled in as an assistant pro at Trump National in Bedminster, New Jersey.

“I got into a nice conversation with Donald, Mr. Trump, one day. He’s like, ‘Why are you folding shirts and giving lessons? Why aren’t you on the Tour? I’ve played with tour players, you’re good enough.’ I don’t know, maybe something like that gives you more confidence,” Herman told Simon Evans of Reuters after winning the Shell Houston Open.

2. Displays high integrity and honesty.

In business, your word is your bond. Fellow billionaires T. Boone Pickens, Conrad Black, and Carl Icahn vouch for him. Businessmen seldom give a liar a second chance. Trump is tough, but respected.

3. Solves problems and analyzes issues.

In the 1970s, developers gave up on most of Manhattan. Enter Trump. He bought the Commodore Hotel in the hope of restoring it to its former glory. That meant closing down the X-rated shops that infested its first floor. The city offered him tax abatements, but the banks were reluctant to finance his project. Trump, all of 34, figured out a way to make it work.

4. Drives for results.

The city of New York wasted six years and millions of dollars trying to renovate an ice rink at Central Park. Trump took the project over, and brought it in under budget and on schedule in six months.

5. Communicates powerfully and prolifically.

What can I say? No one has commanded news coverage like The Donald. True, much of it is negative, but like Reagan, he talks through the camera and directly to the public. He was the Big Dog who showed that the rest in the litter were runts.

6. Builds relationships.

One of my favorite chapters in my book includes a testimonial from Peter David Ticktin, an extraordinary trial lawyer who rid Ontario of the loathsome Uniform Summons within a year of passing the Bar. He served as Trump’s top sergeant when they were in military school together in the 1960s.

“Of the 99 guys (no girls in those days) in our class, there is not one who I know who has a bad word to say about Donald Trump. Think of it. With all the jealousies which arise in high school and thereafter, with all the potential envy, not one of us has anything other than positive memories of this man. How could we? He was an A student, a top athlete, and as a leader, he was highly respected. We never feared him, yet we never wanted to disappoint him,” Ticktin wrote.

7. Displays technical or professional expertise.

His eldest son said he and his brother are the only sons of billionaires in the world who can operate a D-10 Caterpillar. Trump raised him like his father, Fred Trump, raised his sons by making them pull weeds and learn development from the sub-floor up.

8. Displays a strategic perspective.

Throughout Donald Trump’s career, he has developed strategies, beginning with converting the Commodore Hotel into the Grand Hyatt. He studied the media until he mastered it. His reality shows dominated the ratings over 14 seasons.

9. Develops others.

Trump made his caddy, Dan Scavino Jr., his social media director. Trump does not go by résumé. He goes by results.

10. Innovates.

Until Trump, recent presidential nominees had to raise millions and blow millions on ads and huge staffs to win. A billionaire, he did not buy the election. Rather, he earned it by going out there every day and rallying the people by standing for something — America.

Bonus: Champions change.

Trump is an advocate of Management By Wandering Around. He talks to staff and to learn first-hand what is going on. Professor Newt Gingrich said Trump is one of the quickest learners he has ever seen.

Flip flop? You can bet your assets that he will change his position at any time, anywhere, and any place if given new facts. He was pro-choice until he realized that a baby is not an inconvenience but a gift from God.

Yes, I get that he is not a cookie-cutter conservative when it comes to policy. But writing policy is not a president’s job. You hire people like Ted Cruz to draft policy. That is what President Bush 43 did.

Trump’s biggest selling point is that like Bush 43, Reagan, and Eisenhower, Trump accomplished something in life before entering politics. That taught him that public policy has consequences. Leaders should be aware of the damage as well as the good they do.

Washington today is like the Commodore Hotel was in the 1970s. Trump will gut it and make it better than you have ever seen it. He made Manhattan great again. Of course he will Make America Great Again.

The Conservative Crack-Up Makes Way for Hillary’s Crack-Up;

Last week the exigent news story was all about the conservative crack-up, which pleased me, I having written the book entitled The Conservative Crack-Up many moons ago, though I had a lot more facts in my book than you will find in all the news reports that appeared last week. Moreover, my crack-up had a happier ending for conservatives than the crack-up predicted last week for contemporary conservatives. In brief, the wisenheimers of the media were predicting that Donald Trump, having snagged the Republican nomination, was coming to Washington in a matter of days to burn down Republican National Headquarters and take Republican leaders prisoner, most significantly House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Now let me make my own prediction. Nothing of the kind will take place. Trump and Ryan will hold a non-committal meeting. The silly season will continue for weeks with more and more Republicans throwing in with the Republicans’ presumptive nominee. Then as we approach the Republican National Convention ever more Republicans will come on board the national ticket, and they will get on with the scheduled elections. There will be fireworks, but nothing like a conservative crack-up. Journalists, control yourselves. Democrats, subside. Everyone take a look at the Democratic contest for a change. More specifically, take a look at the storm clouds gathering over Hillary the Inevitable.

Last week the FBI’s investigation entered a critical phase all of a sudden. Ever since late last year I have been writing that the investigation of Hillary was a very serious matter. Mostly I have been ignored, but then I was ignored when in this column last July I took the Trump campaign seriously.

This investigation by the FBI could end her candidacy and lead to a stretch in the calaboose for her and her aides. Even her lovable lug of a hubby is not exempt. Last week we heard that her aides have already been interviewed. That ought to enlighten the friends of Huma Abedin as to why the sultry smile has left her lovely face in recent days. Now the FBI is about to make Hillary’s busy schedule even busier. She will be interviewed shortly.

The FBI’s investigation began to bear fruit when Bryan Pagliano, Hillary’s IT whiz, was given immunity in exchange for his cooperation. My spies tell me Pagliano has been much more cooperative than Webb Hubbell was eighteen years ago when he was granted immunity by Independent Counsel Ken Starr then investigating yet another Clinton scandal. Pagliano, if he is prudent, will not want to follow Hubbell’s path to prison.

Now we know that “Guccifer” has made the long trek from Romania where he was jailed for such violations as hacking famous peoples emails, among them those of Sidney Blumenthal, the oddball confidant of Hillary. Guccifer is in reality Marcel Lehel Lazar, an unemployed Romanian taxi driver who spent his days until arrested by the authorities sitting in his underwear at home hacking the famous and sending their emails around the globe. It is because of this genius that the whole American political world knows about Hillary’s “home-brew server.” She insists that no state secrets were revealed. Yet the FBI has questioned Guccifer and last week we heard that Guccifer reported to NBC News that in hacking Hillary’s server, “It was like an open orchid on the Internet. There were hundreds of folders.” Hillary’s day of reckoning comes ever closer.

Last week, of a sudden, Donald Trump, the Republican candidate whose candidacy the experts doubted for months, became the unchallenged Republican nominee with months to go before the Convention. Is it possible that Hillary after months of campaigning against a 74-year-old socialist for the Democratic nomination will, of a sudden, have leaks from the FBI to contend with? Has the process already begun? Will she make it to the Democratic Convention?

The smart money says the Clintons are too smart to allow such a freak event as Hillary’s hacked emails to deny her the nomination. Yet I have been writing about the Clintons for years and I have many memories of the Clintons’ surprisingly goof-ball scandals. In my 2007 book entitled familiarly The Clinton Crack-Up: The Boy President’s Life After the White House, I revealed that in the dark of the night the Boy President would have “phone sex” with Monica Lewinsky on an unsecure White House telephone. Foreign governments were listening, their tape recorders whirring. If Bill could be so stupid, then why would we think that Hillary was any smarter in the age of the Internet?

Stories of the FBI’s mounting investigation are circulating in political circles now. If somehow Hillary is elected to the presidency, rumors of Bill’s “phone-sex” taped by French, Israeli, and Russian intelligence agencies could circulate again. The tapes could be used for blackmail. Does the American electorate really want to hazard four more years of the Clintons?