EXCLUSIVE: 'The least sexist boss I ever had': What Trump critic Barbara Res REALLY thought before she turned on The Donald – after he 'got rid of her' and refused to hire her back 

The woman who managed the construction of Trump Tower, Donald Trump's gleaming black and gold Manhattan headquarters, wrote in her memoirs that the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting was 'the least sexist boss I ever had,' DailyMail.com can reveal.

But Barbara Res, the first female hard-hat boss to oversee an American skyscraper from start to finish, has become an anti-Trump partisan since then, painting a picture in media interviews of a misogynist playboy who cavalierly wore his biases at work.

Res appeared in a front-page New York Times bash-fest on May 14, complaining that the billionaire builder would boast about his reputation as a sexual romeo and needled her about her weight.

'You like your candy,' Res told the Times she remembered him saying. 'It was him reminding me that I was overweight.'

Her 2013 book, 'All Alone on the 68th Floor,' together with a trove of emails between Res and Trump Organization senior vice president Rhona Graff – seen exclusively by DailyMail.com – provide a radically different look at the former key lieutenant.

They suggest she grew angry with Trump after he declined her repeated requests for a new job three decades later, and after he launched his bid for the presidency, a job for which she saw Hillary Clinton perfectly suited.

SOUR GRAPES? Donald Trump says Barbara Res (right), the woman he once hired in a glass ceiling-smashing move to lead construction of Trump Tower, has taken to calling him a sexist because she's angry he wouldn't rehire her

QUICK CHANGE: Res was largely glowing in her 2013 book, calling Trump 'the least sexist boss I ever had,' but is crusading against him now that he's running for president against Hillary Clinton

Res explained to Graff in the lengthy chain of correspondence that she had reached a dead end with her second career – the law – just as her husband found himself out of work.

Trump had sent warm letters of recommendation to accompany her law school application years earlier and, later, her application for admission to the New Jersey Bar. So she reached back for a lifeline.

'I was wondering if you had anything for me in your empire or could recommend something. I hate to ask favors, and I don't mean to take advantage, but I am in a particularly precarious spot,' she wrote to Graff on May 21, 2012, hoping she would forward the note to Trump – who reportedly doesn't maintain an email account of his own.

The messages stretched from that date to February 20, 2014 and quickly progressed from a pleasant hiring request to an ask for a 'consolation prize ... a weekend at the casino.'

PIONEER: Res's book paints a picture of 1980s construction work as male-dominated and demeaning to women – except for Trump, the boss, who was supportive at every turn

In the months that followed, Res's notes to Graff became a chip on her shoulder when her boss of decades past didn't welcome her back to Team Trump or leap to help promote her book about seual politics in the construction world.

Trump himself initially reacted to Res's comments in the May 14 New York Times article by insisting on Twitter that her attacks stemmed from sour grapes.

'I gave a woman named Barbara Res a top N.Y. construction job, when that was unheard of, and now she is nasty,' he tweeted two days later. 'So much for a nice thank you!'

Another tweeted broadside came the following day: 'What Barbara Res does not say is that she would call my company endlessly, and for years, trying to come back. I said no.'

Res's emails lend credence to his interpretation of events.

Trump said Monday that partly because of his unfavorable experience using Res as a long-term contractor after she had left his company, he now has a policy against rehiring employees with whom he has parted ways.

'She left, and I took her back, and then I got rid of her,' he explained in a phone interview. 'I didn't like the job she was doing anymore.'

'When she left, she didn't last very long in the business,' he said. 'Then she wanted to come back. And for many years there were these letters and emails and phone calls. Just more and more.'

Res turned away questions on Monday, saying in a terse statement to DailyMail.com only that '[a]t this moment, I am not giving any interviews.'

Trump, however, had plenty to say about his former building chief.

'You talk about a glass ceiling! I don't think there was a woman in the city that was in charge of a big job site,' he told DailyMail.com.

Before he elevated Res, he said, 'I don't believe there was a woman in the city who had that responsibility.'

Trump recalled first promoting her, over his father's objections, to finish the construction of his Grand Hyatt project in New York City, a luxury lodging that rose from the ruins of a dilapidated hotel in a neighborhood that had seen better days.

CH-CH-CHANGES: Barbara Res pictured (left) on a 1980s construction site, when she was pro-Trump, and (right) last week on CNN

'When I hired her to head up this major construction, my father, who is from the old school, said, "No! Why are you hiring her?"' Trump recalled.

'And I said, "Dad, I think she'll be good." He wasn't in favor of it because women weren't in that job. And you know what? I said to my father ... "Pop, I'm telling you she'll be fine." And I did it against his wishes.'

He remembered Res as a competent and aggressive construction boss who barked at contractors and cursed like a sailor to fit in with a workplace heavy on testosterone and light on courtesy – even though she was the boss.

'I called her into my office once, years ago, and I said, "Barbara, you've got to clean up your mouth. What you're saying is horrible." She was using the F-bomb with everyone, you know, screaming at men – screaming at them!'

Trump claimed his chief operating officer, Matt Calamari, recognized her on CNN in March and reminded him of her daily verbal blue streaks.

'Matt was working with her on job sites,' Trump said Monday. 'He told me, "I can't believe this. I'm watching Barbara Res on television. She had the most foul mouth of any human being I've ever come into contact with".'

'I wrote the quote down!' the GOP tycoon insisted, reading it again verbatim.

'And now,' Trump pivoted, 'she goes on CNN and acts like this aggrieved person, and says, "He told me not to have a piece of candy!" Give me a break.'

Res's book paints a picture of a vicious workplace ruled by alpha males who taunted her with nude pinup models, verbally prodded her about her body in elevators and urinated on exposed building girders just to unnerve her.

But it was Trump, she wrote, who treated her the same way he treated the men in his company – the polar opposite of the narrative she fueled in the New York Times story.

'Donald, for all his womanizing and commentary, was the least sexist boss I ever had as far as trusting me and viewing me equally with all the men we encountered in our mutual dealings,' she wrote in the 2013 book.

'I do not believe he ever made a comment behind my back about me being this way or that because I was a woman.'

EMAILS BACK HIM UP: A lengthy email correspondence between Res and Trump Organization Senior Vice President Rhoma Graff strongly supports Trump's contention that she turned on him after he decided not to bring her back with a new company position three decades after first elevating her to leadership

She also fleshed out a damning quotation the Times rendered in shorter form about how the billionaire valued the sexes in the workplace.

'I know you're a woman in a man's world,' Res told the Times Trump had once confided in her. 'And while men tend to be better than women, a good woman is better than 10 good men.'

In her memoir she adds that Trump declared: 'I was that woman.'

'He meant that but I don't think in a sexist way,' she explained in the book.

'I think he was saying that most women don't have the stomach for the industry and that most of the men you ran into were blase and ordinary. But a woman who had achieved something was invariably far superior to the men in her class.'

Recalling her cameo on the TV quiz show 'To Tell the Truth' – appearing as herself, 'the first woman in the world' to lead the construction of a major skyscraper – she reveled in being a pawn in Trump's promotion exercises.

'Donald was an incredibly supportive boss, even if his reasons were suspect. ... I did a good job and Donald was good to me,' she wrote.

Res framed herself as a Donald J. Trump intimate, referring to him as 'DJT' – in the status-dripping style of the real estate tycoon's closest deputies today.

'When I started with DJT in September, 1980, I was the real "Apprentice." We were inseparable,' she wrote. 'I learned from him, and he learned from me. We learned together.'

And 'Donald NEVER asked me to do anything that wasn't 100% above board, mostly because in my dealings with him he was pretty much on the up and up,' she added.

'Donald knew I would not do anything dishonest or illegal. Of course I bent the rules or played them like they are meant to be played. And that was good enough.'

TRANSFORMATION: Res studied engineering subjects in school and worked her way up in a male-dominated field, ultimately becoming the first American woman put in charge of building a skyscraper

Dailymail.com sent Trump a handful of pages from Res's book, which he said he had never read.

'I see she wrote that I wasn't a sexist,' he commented. 'Because, you know, I treated her so well!'

'But instead of saying that on television, she goes and says I'm a sexist. ... It's ridiculous.'

Trump said the last time he and Res spoke to each other was 'at least' ten years ago.

'I haven't changed,' he told DailyMail.com. 'This is a killer for her, because she either lied in her book or she's lying with what she's saying now. And honestly, she doesn't know anything about me.'

'All these lies – they were the opposite of what she said in that book three years ago.'

Res was never likely to jump aboard the 2016 Trump train. Even in her 2013 book, she had high praise for former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, lamenting that she couldn't beat President Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary despite being 'more qualified' for the presidency.

In an interview appearing last week in The Hill, she framed the Oval office as a feminist platform for which Trump was all wrong.

'I don't think he has the temperament necessarily for this kind of work. He's not necessarily, in my mind, presidential material,' she said.

Res called the direction a President Trump would move the country 'xenophobic and not women-centered or, actually, anti-women.'

'I just don't think that moving forward in his direction is moving forward at all. I think it's moving backward, very seriously moving backward.'

Res's rollout began in earnest in February with an op-ed in the New York Daily News, complaining of things that were absent from her book.

'He leered at attractive female employees,' Res claimed.

'[H]is public denigration of women and his association with objectifying activities like Playboy and pageants have the overall effect of blunting any assertion that he is not sexist, regardless of how many women Trump has hired.'

That essay ended with an overtly political argument against Trump and in favor of Clinton. 

'He is against reproductive freedom. He is against raising the minimum wage to a fair and equitable rate. He wants to do away with the Affordable Care Act. He wants to deport unregistered aliens. All of these issues impact women profoundly,' Res wrote.

'Even a cabinet full of women would not mitigate the disastrous effect implementing his proposals would have on the welfare and progress of women in our country.'

But she had high hopes for her book  in 2013 – and no inkling that her former boss would become Clinton's main foil – as she wrote to Trumpworld over and over again.

As it became clear that the future GOP candidate wouldn't extend her a job offer, she turned sour on Trump for the first time.

'He just cant be bothered with me,' Res wrote on July 25, 2013 to Graff, who manages Trump's personal correspondence along with the most sensitive details of his artful deals.

Minutes later Res sent another rueful email: 'He is a superstar now, I am just one of a million employees.' 

BARBARA'S FOOTPRINT: Res was first tapped as a supervisor during construction of New York City's Grand Hyatt hotel (left), and later scored the head job – a first for a woman – as Trump Tower was slated to go up

After two months of trying in vain to recapture Trump's confidence, Res emailed Graff: 'You probably know DJT hates my book and hates me too. I am quite surprised at this and I tried to speak with him but he blew me away.'

'I am sure he doesn't "hate you",' Graff wrote back. 'I will certainly show him your attached letter so you feel that you are properly heard.'

Months earlier, she sent a cheerful reassurance to an insecure Res that 'I never hear him say anything negative about you.'

Ultimately Res asked Graff to help persuade Trump to position her as evidence of his progressive attitude toward women in the workplace – a view she later claimed he lacked.

'Promoting me as the feminist engineer who built Trump Tower could be a good thing' for him, she told Graff.

As her own unemployment stretched into its third year, she reminded Trump that her book had painted him as a fair-minded businessman – the opposite of the role she has cast her in this year in media interviews.

'I do appreciate all the things you have done for me, such as providing recommendations for Law School and the Bar,' she wrote directly to Trump in a cover letter accompanying a copy of her book in July 2013. 'And, of course, I will always be grateful for the opportunity to do Trump Tower.'

'I think I was fair and honest,' she added in a self-critique,' and I credit you with giving me a big break, and treating me, in contrast to your reported demeanor, in a very non-sexist way.'

She later wrote to Graff: 'I thought I portrayed him honestly and said that he was very smart and not a sexist, at least when it came to me and other powerful women he employed.'

The final email in the chain DailyMail.com obtained was a note from Res to Graff about a newsletter she briefly produced on the 'STEMinist' platform, an online forum for promoting women's roles in science, technology, engineering and mathematics professions.

'Unfortunately, because of the occupation I chose, there were no female role models,' Res wrote in her own profile on the website.

'I had some men who were mentors. Think what you will, Donald Trump and his wife Ivana were my biggest promoters and he gave me unbelievable opportunities.'

In an aside to Graff, Res seemed to be pleading for a lifeline.

'I always tell the truth and I think I am better at promoting Donald than putting him down,' Res wrote.

'Maybe he will come to his senses some day and realize that I am a good thing for him.'

On Monday Trump blasted the nine-day-old New York Times story, the starting gun in the latest round of Trump-hates-women shaggy dog stories, as 'horrible and disgusting.'

He confronted head-on Res's claim that he had once proudly shown off a New York Post cover to his staff because it trumpeted then-girlfriend Marla Maples' praise for his sexual prowess.

The Republican White House hopeful sniped at 'all these lies about me, like I said this and I said that, and the thing with the magazine article I supposedly held up and circled something and it went around the room.'

'I would never!' he insisted. 'These are people I worked with every day. Never happened.'

He also twisted the knife in a bout of anti-Times schaddenfreude, now that a trio of women – Rowanne Brewer Lane, Carrie Prejean and Temple Taggart – have distanced themselves from the front-page article in which they appeared.

'They have come back and said, "That's not what we said",' Trump boasted Monday.

'Rowanne Lane didn't have to say what she said. What Rowanne said was so nice. She said to the Times, "You totally misrepresented me." And Carrie Prejean came back too.'

'Then there was that nice girl from Utah,' he continued – referring to Taggart, 'the one who said I gave her a kiss.'

Taggart, the Times reported, complained that Trump 'kissed me directly on the lips. I thought, "Oh my God, gross." He was married to Marla Maples at the time.'

Trump pushed back on Monday.

'She recanted. She said it never happened,' he insisted.

'You know what? She was a nice kid. She was in front of her parents. We had thousands of people there in the audience. She said, "Hi, Mr. Trump." And she came over and gave me a hug and I gave her a kiss on the cheek.'

'This was done on television!' he remembered, his voice in mid-crescendo.

'This was just before the pageant. And they made it sound like it was some act that happened in a dark bedroom somewhere.'