Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan), eager to make his name as a hungry second son of a wealthy family in 1970s New York, comes under the spell of Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), the cutthroat attorney who would help create the Donald Trump we know today.
Cohn sees in Trump the perfect protégé -- someone with raw ambition, a hunger for success, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to win. Both actors, especially Jeremy Strong, are gripping in a coming-of-age story that portrays the younger Trump somewhat sympathetically, though he loses his soul as he learns to imitate Cohn’s tactics. Can be compared to the Frankenstein tale in which the mad doctor creates a monster and then loses control of it.