HOW TRUMP IS MONETIZING HIS DEFEAT
Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump, his sycophants and zealous followers know he lost. At noon on January 20, 2021, Joseph R. Biden Jr. will be sworn in as the forty-sixth president of the United States. Why, then, does Trump persist in the conceit he won the election?
Trump’s refusal to concede is not about a recount or fraud, a coup d’etat or the scattershot of frivolous lawsuits (most of which have already been dismissed in the various courts). What’s really going on here is pure self-absorbed Trump: money. For Donald Trump, money means power and visibility. He is actively using his defeat to induce donors, via his official website and other means, to fill his pockets before he plunges off the cliff to a rocky future. His PAC, Save America, is not about saving America; it’s about saving Donald Trump.
If Trump were to concede now, there will be little incentive for his followers to continue to donate or to “make a weekly recurring donation until 12/14” as his website urges, to recount the votes. His personal message incites his donors with false information: “We can’t allow the Left-wing MOB to undermine our Election.” And “[t]here will be FRAUD like you’ve never seen, plain and simple!” To date, there has been no evidence whatsoever to support Trump’s claim. U.S. cybersecurity officials recently concluded: “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.”
To speak the truth in Trump’s presence or publicly leads to the same result — getting fired, typically via a tweet. Christopher Krebs, director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, reportedly told associates he expects to get fired by Trump. The truth is Trump’s enemy, as evidenced by the remarkably high turnover rate in his administration. As expected, late in the day on November 17, 2020, Trump fired Krebs via Twitter. That firing was followed by commendations for Krebs’ work from legislators, cybersecurity officials and others. Sen. Elizabeth Warren stated Krebs “got fired because he did his job to protect our elections and stood up to Trump’s conspiracy theories.” Krebs affirmed the security of the election with a tweet of his own: “Honored to serve. We did it right. Defend Today. Secure Tomorrow.”
“I’m really rich,” Trump told the Des Moines Register in June 2015. It was Trump bluster never supported with income tax returns or any other evidence, and we are now just beginning to learn why. “I’m the most successful person ever to run for the presidency, by far,” he boasted then. “Nobody’s ever been more successful than me. I’m the most successful person ever to run. Ross Perot isn’t successful like me. Romney — I have a Gucci store that’s worth more than Romney.”
What Trump fought to conceal is the truth — the dark side of his finances. He faces an estimated $900 million in loans coming due beginning in early 2021, and continuing through at least 2024. Those loans are secured by properties that include Trump Tower and Trump Plaza in New York City, other properties in Manhattan and in San Francisco. To add to his troubles, there are approximately 4,000 legal actions currently pending against him. One such case was brought by E. Jean Carroll, alleging Trump defamed her last year in denying he sexually assaulted her in a department store dressing room. Approximately ten months into that lawsuit, the White House asked the Justice Department to intervene. Attorney General William Barr announced the filing of a notice removing the Carroll case from a New York state court to the Manhattan federal court. Barr outrageously contends Trump was acting within the scope of his employment as president when he disparaged Ms. Carroll. And — this is what’s really going on — if Trump loses, the damages will be paid by taxpayers, not Trump.
It gets worse. In August 2020, the New York attorney general filed an action against the Trump Organization and Eric Trump, the current designated leader of the company, alleging Trump’s company improperly inflated the value of its assets to mislead lenders and taxing authorities. There is also the matter of a $150 million loan related to a Trump hotel in Chicago. The lender forgave over $100 million and allowed Trump to pay off that loan for a mere $48 million. In the opinion of tax experts, forgiven debt is often treated as income and is taxable. Trump’s company failed to provide documentation evidencing the forgiven debt was recognized as taxable income. There’s even more trouble for Trump on the horizon. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is investigating payoffs made in 2016 to women who alleged they had affairs with Trump, as well as other financial matters.
Perhaps Trump should start packing for his move from the White House around December 15, 2020, the day after, “the weekly recurrent donations” are — according to his official website — expected to end. The craziness about his “win” deceives donors who may miss the fine print on his website. Do their donations to Trump’s “Official Election Defense Fund” actually go toward funding the “recount account?” No. Not unless those donations exceed $8,333. Sixty percent of each donation up to that amount gets diverted to Trump’s recently opened PAC, Save America. Money in that PAC can be used for a wide range of activities, among them — the staging of rallies across the country to refuel his base and feed his hunger for attention, affirmation, and applause; the promotion of loyalist candidates and Trump donations to their campaigns; the payments to family members (recurring problem on his tax returns); and the funding of fancy events at his own venues to bring in more sources of money. According to lawyers, however, Trump would be barred from spending those PAC funds on recounts. A run in 2024? Unlikely. Trump may well be incarcerated by then.
The only consistency in this presidency is Trump’s motivation. His words and actions, regardless of the fallout in this country or abroad, are borne of an insatiable hunger for personal power and financial gain. What’s good for Trump, what fills his pockets with more power, more cash, that’s good, and the hell with anyone or anything else! What Donald Trump needs more than anything else right now is cash. What better place to go than the American voter? The Covid pandemic? An American president has swept it aside for nearly a year, without a word about the loss of more than two hundred and forty thousand lives. Inconceivable.
Churchill once said the greatest things can be expressed in a single word: “freedom, justice, honour, duty, mercy, hope.” When have you ever heard Trump utter any one of those words? The mere mention of Winston Churchill and Donald Trump in the same paragraph illustrates the magnitude of our loss over the last four years.
