Less than one week until New York Attorney General Letitia James threatened to seize Donald Trump's assets if he fails to come up with the $464 million bond for his civil fraud case judgement, The Washington Post reports the ex-president's best option would be to file for bankruptcy.
However, the Post reports Trump "is not considering that approach, partially out of concern that it could damage his campaign to recapture the White House from President Biden in November."
During the latest episode of MSNBC's Deadline: White House, former US Rep. David Jolly (R-FL), emphasized, "In some ways, his real estate empire — at least the image of it — is bigger than his own presidency."
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Speaking to Jolly's fellow panelist, Bloomberg Senior Executive Editor Tim O'Brien, guest host Alicia Menendez referenced the former GOP congressman's words, saying, "We are reminded over and over that this essentially was a merchandising brand that involved into a political brand — predicated on that merchandising brand. It was always about the brand. But now they're inextricable. Something can't happen to one — you can't have something happen to the political brand without having repercussions for the merchandising brand. You also can't have something happen to the name itself without having repercussions on the political side."
O'Brien replied, "Yeah, I don't know how much his base cares, anymore, about his history as a businessman, you know, I think they see him — it's a cult. I think they see him as a sort of mote between woke liberalism and a racially diversifying United States, and an oppressive government, and foreign powers, and they see him, first and foremost, in that way."
The Bloomberg editor noted, "I do think he, himself, is going to have real difficulty going out on the campaign trail and saying, 'I'm the entrepreneurial guru' to the masses, 'When I'm actually a serial bankruptcy artist,' which is what we went through in the '90s. He not only had six corporate bankruptcies — he came within a hair of going personally bankrupt. His siblings had to bail him out with money from his father's estate. And at the time, it was a searing event for him. He moved away from that when The Apprentice recreated him in the imagination of most American voters."
O'Brien emphasized, "But prior to that, he was seen as this sort of punchline to jokes about the excesses of the 1980s. And The Apprentice reinvented that. And now you see him descending again into the 'my pockets are empty. I can't meet my bills.'"
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Menendez jokingly added, "I'm just like you. Inflation has hit me hard, too."
O'Brien echoed the host, saying, "Yeah, that's right. 'I can't pay my phone bill, either,'" adding, "And I think that's something he doesn't want personally, but don't know how much that will matter to voters. Because I think at this point, his base, his core base is ensured to any kind of criticism of what he does or who he is. But then again, they don't really matter in the general. This kind of stuff does matter to Independents."
Watch the video below or at this link.
'His siblings had to bail him out': Analyst details Trump’s history as a 'serial bankruptcy artist' www.youtube.com
