The New York Times published a jaw-dropping story on Tuesday, giving us a glimpse into the financial crisis Donald Trump was in over his Chicago skyscraper development in which he failed to repay his lenders. Trump has had more than $270 million in debt forgiven since 2010. Trump, once again, managed to pay almost no federal taxes on what ended up being forgiven loans. Trump avoided paying those taxes partially because of the significant financial losses his other businesses were enduring.
“He [Trump] and his family hoped the Trump International Hotel & Tower would cement their company’s reputation as one of the world’s marquee developers of luxury real estate,” the Times reports. “Instead, the skyscraper became another disappointment in a portfolio filled with them. Construction lagged. Condos proved hard to sell. Retail space sat vacant.”
“When the project encountered problems, he tried to walk away from his huge debts,” the report states. “For most individuals or businesses, that would have been a recipe for ruin. But tax-return data, other records, and interviews show that rather than warring with a notoriously litigious and headline-seeking client, lenders cut Mr. Trump slack — exactly what he seemed to have been counting on.”
And this story was published less than a week before the election in November, and Trump appeared to acknowledge that it’s true on Twitter Wednesday morning, asking, “Doesn’t that make me a smart guy rather than a bad guy?”
As a developer long ago, and continuing to this day, the politicians ran Chicago into the ground. I was able to make an appropriately great deal with the numerous lenders on a large and very beautiful tower. Doesn’t that make me a smart guy rather than a bad guy?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 28, 2020
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Well, we can answer that question for him. During the 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump promised he would eliminate the nation’s debt in eight years. Instead, he has sunk the United States into an apocalyptic nightmare. When Trump took office in January 2017, the national debt stood at $19.9 trillion. In October 2020, the national debt reached a new high of $27 trillion. The difference is that this country won’t have its debt forgiven, and Trump is running the U.S. just as he has run his businesses — into the ground.
So, while millions of Americans are struggling to put food on the table amid the raging pandemic that Trump has mishandled at every turn, he probably sees this nightmarish scenario as him being the “smart guy.”
Featured image via Gage Skidmore/Flickr, under Creative Commons license 2.0
