Trump: I Help Myself Before I Help Others

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Hillary Clinton gave a big speech today laying out the case that Donald Trump is a lousy businessman. Trump’s counterargument, as usual, is that bankruptcy laws are there to be used, and anyway, only four out of his hundreds of companies have ever gone bankrupt. Oddly enough, this is actually true—but only in a hypertechnical sense, not in any sense that actually matters.

The real story is that he went enormously into debt in the late 80s, did a lousy job of running his casinos, and went completely bust. He only avoided personal bankruptcy because his creditors decided it was better to put him on a strict allowance and keep him on the team that liquidated his assets. When Trump finally recovered, no one would loan him money anymore, so he suckered the public into doing it. His shiny new publicly-traded casino company was the only time we ever got a real look at how Trump runs his companies, and it was a disaster. Trump paid himself millions, but the company never made a profit and eventually went under. Mom and pop investors lost everything. If you want all the gory details, Matt Yglesias rounds them up here.

Anyway, this is just a long windup to share with you his campaign’s response to Hillary’s speech:

Ladies and gentlemen, your Republican nominee for president. Makes you feel proud to be an American, doesn’t it?

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate