President Donald Trump may have been itching to get his greedy hands on part of the $500 billion bailout fund being considered by Congress, but a new version of the bill bars him and his family from getting a dime, even as his business empire crumbles.
The coronavirus pandemic has taken a toll on businesses across the country, so much so, that many industries are asking for a bailout.
Republicans attempted to do just that, but it amounted to a corporate slush fund with zero oversight that Trump refused to say he wouldn’t see money from. In fact, Trump wanted to be the “oversight” all by himself, which would have guaranteed corruption as he likely would have used it as his personal piggy bank.
Five hundred billion dollars is a lot of money and he has a lot of properties he could send cash to at this time, especially since all of them are struggling.
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According to the Business Times:
His five-star US and Canada hotels with more than 2,200 rooms are mostly empty, his golf courses in the United States, Scotland and Ireland are under pressure to close, and his cherished ‘Southern White House’ – the beach-front Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida is shuttered.
Like other hotels around the country, Mr Trump’s have been forced to lay off most workers and face the fact that the US$435 million in revenues that the Trump Organization reported in 2018 is likely to plummet this year.
How severe that would be to a family-controlled business notoriously untransparent about its finances is unknown.”
Most likely, it’s costing Trump and his family of grifters millions of dollars. Empty hotels and resorts don’t make a profit, especially since Trump insists that they remain open for business.
Unfortunately for Trump, Democrats don’t trust him to oversee a single cent of a potential bailout fund.
And it looks like new provisions in the latest version of the bill agreed upon by the White House and Congress bars any of the money from going to Trump, his businesses and his family members, including any in-laws.
Schumer office said he has secured a provision in the agreement that will prohibit “businesses controlled by the President, Vice President, Members of Congress, and heads of Executive Departments from receiving loans or investments from Treasury programs.”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) March 25, 2020
“The children, spouses and in-laws of the aforementioned principals are also included in this prohibition.”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) March 25, 2020
That means Trump and his kids won’t see any money from taxpayers to save their businesses, nor will any of his immediate associates. The question is whether Trump will sign the bill if it passes. We’ve seen Trump contradict White House compromises before. And because this bailout won’t benefit him financially in the slightest, he may veto it out of sheer greed.
But doing so would also cost him politically. If he vetoes a bill that would save the economy and help the American people just because he doesn’t get to take any of the money, it would doom his re-election chances in November.
At this point, it’s safe to say that most people probably don’t give a damn about Trump or his businesses. If it means saving the overall economy and getting relief to struggling Americans, sacrificing the Trumps is a fair trade. After all, it’s better than his idea of trading lives for Wall Street.
Featured image via screen capture
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