PETALING JAYA: It isn’t easy to influence the hearts and minds of people to vote in a leader. This task is even more of an uphill battle if that leader happens to be Donald Trump.

However, ‘the Donald’ yesterday defied the odds and his critics when he edged out Hillary Clinton to emerge victorious in the United States’ presidential race.

Although Clinton was ahead of Trump in popular votes, Trump who has been labelled a racist, xenophobe and groper, amongst others, garnered 279 electoral college votes against Clinton’s 228 to secure his place as America’s 45th president.

In the aftermath of Trump’s surprise win, a Malaysian blogger recalled how she once had the opportunity to interact with the well-known businessman.

Sara Khong CK who founded an online lifestyle magazine called JewelPie wrote on her blog yesterday how seven years ago, she was given the opportunity to ask ‘the Donald’ a question.

Khong, at the time, was attending the Southeast Asia Youth for Change summit in Putrajaya in 2009. Sharing her blogpost of 2009, Khong said the queue to ask Trump questions was long and she worried she wouldn’t make it.

Khong however did get her chance and the question she chose to ask was if Trump considered himself “happy”.

Admitting that the question may have sounded simple, Khong however said she was rather curious as to whether the famous entrepreneur was a happy man following the advice he gave budding entrepreneurs to “always have a prenup”(prenuptial agreement).

“That was the only wisdom that he had imparted through the conference call that I do not agree with,” Khong had remarked in her 2009 blogpost.

Khong, who blogs at sarakhong.com/blog/ also said that she bet Trump had never thought about whether all the money he had amassed, brought him happiness.

“So this is what he said, or at least along these lines: ‘I would not say happy in itself. But I am contented. Money cannot buy happiness, but it does make life easier. You can give education to your children, you can give them the best medical attention’,” Khong wrote.

While noting that Trump spoke of other things as well, Khong said at the end of it, he did claim that, “Yes. I am happy.”

Making a fresh remark in her blogpost yesterday, Khong said, “If I asked him this question today, it would have been a resounding ‘yes’.”

FMT Ohsem asked the blogger today about that conference call and Khong said she believed Trump was not really the happy man he claimed to be.

“How can you be happy when you doubt everyone around you? He even doubted his own wife. Shouldn’t he trust his life partner? He can’t possibly be happy if he continues to doubt and distrust those around him,” she said.

Yesterday, as Americans hit the polls, a picture of Trump casting his vote alongside his wife Melania, went viral. In the picture, Trump is seen glancing over the screen on his computer voting booth to look at his wife’s screen.

It is however unclear if he was checking who she was voting for, or was just glancing over at his beautiful wife when the camera caught him at the wrong time.

Either way, Trump is now president-elect and is set to take over from President Barack Obama on Jan 20, 2017.