Not long ago, someone posted a comment on the blog asking how I could be so contemptuous of Donald Trump when the man was a highly successful businessman and a billionaire. I replied by referring to his multiple bankruptcies, Trump Airlines, Trump Steaks, Trump University. But I couldn’t remember them all.
Michael Hiltzik helped me out. He writes a business column for the Los Angeles Times. In this article, he takes advantage of a regulatory document that lists nearly all) of Trump’s business failures.
Trump is launching a new social media platform called “Truth Social” and hopes to raise at least $875 million. Skip over the fact that one of the most notorious liars in our nation would call his outfit “Truth Social.” He doesn’t believe in “truth,” by his own account. He (through Kellyanne Conway) gave us the term “alternative facts,” as well as “fake news” (whatever he didn’t agree with) and said the free press (though protected by the First Amendment) is “the enemy of the people.”
In order to bring a stock offering public, the risks associated with it must be made public. Thus, the publication of Trump’s many bankruptcies appears in a document called an S-4.
Since Hiltzik wrote this article, the SEC and a federal grand jury filed subpoenas to Trump’s social media company (Trump Media and Technology Group), and he resigned from its board, along with Don Trump Jr. and 4 other buddies. Open the link on this article: Trump is running away from the SEC investigation of his company.
Hiltzik writes:
The litany appears in a section of the S-4 headed “Risk Factors,” specifically “Risks Related to our Chairman President Donald J. Trump…”
Let’s delve instead into the Trump-related risks.
“A number of companies that were associated with President Trump have filed for bankruptcy,” the document states. “There can be no assurances that TMTG [that is, Trump Media & Technology Group] will not also become bankrupt.”
Let’s start with Trump’s casinos in Atlantic City:
“The Trump Taj Mahal, which was built and owned by President Trump, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1991. The Trump Plaza, the Trump Castle, and the Plaza Hotel, all owned by President Trump at the time, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1992. THCR, which was founded by President Trump in 1995, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2004. Trump Entertainment Resorts, Inc., the new name given to Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts after its 2004 bankruptcy, declared bankruptcy in 2009.”
Then there’s the list of “companies that had license agreements with President Trump [that] have failed”:
“Trump Shuttle, Inc., launched by President Trump in 1989, defaulted on its loans in 1990 and ceased to exist by 1992. Trump University, founded by President Trump in 2005, ceased operations in 2011 amid lawsuits and investigations regarding the company’s business practices. Trump Vodka, a brand of vodka produced by Drinks Americas under license from the Trump Organization, was introduced in 2005 and discontinued in 2011.”
Also, “Trump Mortgage, LLC, a financial services company founded by President Trump in 2006, ceased operations in 2007. GoTrump.com, a travel site founded by President Trump in 2006, ceased operations in 2007. Trump Steaks, a brand of steak and other meats founded by President Trump in 2007, discontinued sales two months after its launch.”
The S-4 also observes that “President Trump is involved in numerous lawsuits and other matters that could damage his reputation, cause him to be distracted from the business or could force him to resign from TMTG’s board of directors.”
The document goes on to list the numerous investigations of Trump’s behavior in office and after his election defeat, as well as his business dealings before taking office.
Also, “The Trump Organization recently paid $750,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by the District of Columbia accusing the organization of misusing nonprofit funds from the 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee.”
On top of that, “President Trump is the defendant in a defamation lawsuit filed against him by E. Jean Carroll who claims that President Trump defamed her when he denied her allegations of sexual assault against him. In the past, President Trump has been involved in multiple lawsuits and settlements — and the subject of numerous accusations that did not result in legal action — related to sexual conduct and alleged misconduct.”
For investors, the scariest line in the entire document may be this: “The foregoing does not purport to be an exhaustive list.”
The S-4 cites a USA Today article from 2016 finding that “over the previous three decades President Trump and his businesses had been involved in 3,500 legal cases in U.S. federal and state courts…. In the 1,300 cases where the record establishes the outcome, President Trump settled 175 times, lost 38, won 450, and had another 137 cases end with some other outcome. In the other 500 cases, judges dismissed plaintiffs’ claims against President Trump.”
So if you’re inclined to invest with Donald Trump, don’t say you haven’t been warned.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
New Yorkers have long known that Trump was the essence of the ugly American. He was known as an egocentric, womanizing blowhard that sought publicity of any kind. It is shocking that so many people in the country fell for his brand of snake oil. For years most people in the greater NYC area considered Trump a joke.
I hope the justice department can find something to put this swindler out of commission. If that were to happen, lots of little folks that had the misfortune of dealing with this con artist could find some solace in an arrest.
As I recall, “fake news” was a term that was originally used to describe right-wing hoax articles on Facebook and other social media in 2016. And then Trump appropriated the term as a way to describe news from established media that was either inaccurate in part, or, later, just unfavorable.
Here’s an article from back in the days when “fake news” had not yet been appropriated by Trump.
https://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/11/16/13637310/facebook-fake-news-explained
Trump re-defined the term “fake news” to mean “true facts that Trump doesn’t believe benefits him personally and wants his gullible fans to believe are lies.” It is “fake news” that Trump lost the election. That new definition, where words mean whatever Trump says they mean, is his own. And unfortunately has stuck.
Trump also re-defined the definition of “wildly successful businessman”. It means running a business to wildly benefit Trump and screw over – or often bankrupt – everyone else.
None of this surprises me – but it is something to see it all in one place.
Of the 2 articles you suggested today Diane – this quote in the Atlantic, from Lindsay Graham, especially hit a nerve for me today: “I don’t care if they have to stay in these facilities for 400 days,” Graham said on Fox News, about the hundreds of migrant children who had been separated from their parents and locked in cages. This is from a many times elected US Senator……. about children and young adults who are looking for a better life.
😞
Thanks for posting this information, Diane.
Good to see all of that dump’s failed business deals in one place.
So, what did Donnie do after he blew it all and faced bankruptcy? Well, ask his sons Donald Jr. and Erik, both of whom made it clear that the Trump Organization was suddenly rolling in Russian money.
DON THE CON: So, what do I call the new network?
TSAR VLAD: Well, in the old days, in the Soviet Union, we called the propaganda organ Pravda.
DON THE CON: Pravda? OK. So, like “Pravda Social Media?”
TSAR VLAD: No, Donald, Pravda means Truth in Russian.
DON THE CON: You want me to call it Truth in Russian?
TSAR VLAD: NO, DONALD!!! Call it Truth Social.
DON THE CON: Oh. I see.
TSAR VLAD: Of course you do. Because you are such a stable genius.
He cheated people and ran his businesses into bankruptcy. Then he saved himself by becoming a money launderer for Putin’s kleptocracy, for the Russian Mafia state.
The Teflon Don, 2.0.
Don Cheeto “Little Fingers” Trumpbalone
And then, ofc, there was Trump University
And his defrauding of the American people a) with the lie that he started with a small loan from his father, turned that into billions, and was needed as President because of this uncanny ability to make deals and b) with his lie about the stolen election.
Don the Con
When Trump ran for president in 2015, he lied to the American people. He told them, again and again, that he started with “a small loan” from his father and built this into a business worth billions. A New York Times investigation showed that that “small loan” was more than half a billion dollars. And then, well, you just read what happened–Trump had such a head start that he was able to make a little for a time, but he soon ran his main business, real estate, into bankruptcy BECAUSE HE IS A LOUSEY BUSINESSMAN, and had to turn to the Russians to bail him out. He went to Moscow, and suddenly, all kinds of folks around Putin were showing up in the US to buy properties from Trump with cash, and Trump’s sons were telling reporters and investors that they were rolling in Russian money.
The fact that this criminal and his accomplices is still walking around and is even poised to announce yet another run for the presidency is proof positive that we have two legal systems in the United States, one for ordinary people like you and me, and another for rich guy mobsters like the Teflon Don 2.0, Donald Trump.
The other major bit of shadiness was that when he had overreached with the casino business and was going bankrupt and no American bank would touch him, suddenly Deutsche Bank, in Germany, which had lots of deposits from rich guys around Putin, ponied up a one-billion-dollar loan that kept Trump from losing everything.
This filing about Trump reminds me of the warnings that come on cigarette packages: “Smoking by Pregnant Women May Result in Fetal Injury, Premature Birth, And Low Birth Weight,” for example. Note that they always get the capitalization wrong, as in a Trump Tweet or Truth. At any rate, think about this for a moment. Doing business with Trump comes with major warnings.
May result in bankruptcy and embarrassment and the end of democracy
I suspect that Traitor Trump personally profited from every business failure regardless of the bankruptcies. I do not think the traitor lost a penny of his own money. In fact, from what I’ve read, I think the traitor profited off of each business failure just like he profited off the presidency. How much money has his dangerously dumber-than-dumb fascists supporters donated to him?
I say that because I read a detailed report about his casino bankruptcies and how he, as the CEO, gave himself a raise every year even with those hotels/casinos couldn’t pay their bills, the traitor was still getting paid, first, millions annually.
The money that was lost didn’t come out of his pocket. US banks loaned him the money to build that empire on sand and after the final bankruptcy the US banks wouldn’t cooperate unless the traitor stepped down as CEO and the banks decided who replaced him with someone they could trust. But by then it was too late and the US banks ended up losing about a billion dollars.
I also read that the traitor got about $800 million in government subsidies to help him finance the building of those hotel-casinos.
I wonder how much of the billion in bank loans and $800 million in government subsidies ended up in the traitor’s personal bank accounts.
A federal grand jury in New York issued subpoenas for members of the board of directors at Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC).
This special purpose acquisition company HAD plans to take DJT’s social media site Truth Social public.
But months later the Securities and Exchange Commission began investigating the blank check company over its planned merger with Trump’s social media platform.
Shares of DWAC fell more than 9% in pre-market trading after the company disclosed in an SEC filing that a federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York issued the subpoenas.
His bankruptcies appear to be deliberate. It was other person’s money that were at risk, the Taj Mahal was built with money he talked others into investing, he took a $3million salary for himself, didn’t;t pay creditors, and rolled $10million of his own debt into becoming the TajMahal’s debt. When it went belly up, Trump lost his huge debt, all the persona he talked into investing lost their money, workers and contractors lost money, and Trump came out with millions. The salad and non-payment of contractors shows a deliberate act of causing bankruptcy. This has been the story of his life. Ask the people of Scotland what he did there.ook at how he used his Presidency to get rich quick – weekly barbs at Mara-Logo were over $35K per week – everyone who wanted audience with the president had to go there Trumpers are convinced he worked as President for nothing since he didn’t take a salary 9chump change compared to the perks he got for himself) And he will get his Presidential salary for the rest of his life
The evidence of Trump’s sociopathy, thuggish MO and litany of failures (wives, casinos, etc.) was laid out in 1992 by Wayne Barrett in his 492-page book, Trump: The Deals and the Downfall. All that has followed in the subsequent cranking out of books about Trump, which has become an industry, was blueprinted in this seminal investigative biography.
Since then, the most revelatory analysis of Trump’s abnormal behavior has come from his niece, Mary. Perhaps, the simplest understanding of this guy’s life is captured in the title of Rick Wilson’s book: “Everything Trump Touches Dies.”