Trump Grifts

This compilation begins with Obama's Secretary of Treasury Robert Reich detailing Trump's many business failures. Trump's financial salvation came through a 14-year televised reality show, in which he supposedly mentored then fired aspiring businessmen and women following a script provided by producers. This visibility allowed Trump to move from risky borrowing , buying, building, and escaping debts by declaring bankruptcy (six times) to no-risk licensing his name to others.

Late night hosts John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Kimmel have fun listing the overt ways in which Trump parlayed his populist popularity into profitable schemes to separate mostly middle and working class Americans from their assets. The height of hypocrisy may have been reached with his $60 "God Bless the USA" Bibles, cheaply made in China. Also representative of these scams was the sale of "Trump Trading Cards" featuring an impossibly trim Trump as an astronaut, a fireman, a Rambo-like freedom fighter among dozens of other unlikely occupations. After paying $100, the buyer received not an actual card but an internet address where he or she could look at the image. A similar scam sells "meme coins" with Donald's and Melania's images. The coins have no inherent value but were bought by those hoping their value would rise, and they initially did, reaching over $70 shortly after their debut late in 2024. By March of 2025. however, the coins were available on the open market for $11. While Trump and his family made millions, almost a million of his fans lost money on the deal. (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/poli....

These rackets (among others) took place during Trump's campaign for the Presidency in the summer and fall of 2024. However, they were unrelated to his hopes of returning to office as the proceeds went directly into his and his family's pockets. Even after winning the election and returning to office in early 2025, several of these swindles continued, with new ones added, demonstrating that the Master of Mar-a-Lago is determined personally to profit from the Presidency in every way possible.

Sources: Robert Reich: “How Trump Killed Every Business He Touched” (   • How Trump Killed Every Business He Touched...  ); CNN: “Trump Declares Himself a Very Stable Genius”; CNBC: "Trump Declares Himself the Chosen One"; John Oliver: “Last Week Tonight”; CBS: “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”; ABC: “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”; CNN: “Trump off the Rails”; NBC: “Trump Crypto Play”; ABC: “Trump Selling Meme Coin”.