Another highlight of Trump’s White House Coronavirus Campaign Rally yesterday inadvertently revealed exactly why Trump is pushing for bailouts and sending peple back to work as soon as possible. Profits.
Check out the little dance he performed to obscure the fact that he is corruptly benefiting from his presidency and will undoubtedly benefit big time from the stimulus.
Q Mr. President, the bill that is being contemplated by the Senate right now has a fund that has hundreds of billions of dollars for the Treasury Department to use to bail out states and localities, as well as specific industries, such as cruises and hotels. Will you commit publicly that none of that taxpayer money will go towards your own personal properties?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you know, every time I do it — like, for instance, I committed publicly that I wouldn’t take the $450,000 salary. It’s a lot of money. Whether you’re rich or not, it’s a lot of money. And I did it and nobody cared. Nobody — nobody said, “Thank you.” Nobody said, “Thank you very much.”
Now, I didn’t commit legally. I just said, “I don’t want it. I don’t want my salary. I work for zero. I don’t want my salary.” Nobody said, “Oh, thank you very much.” But I guarantee you, if I ever took it, you would go out after me — you, in particular, would go out after me like crazy.
So I have no idea what they’re talking about with regard to the one element. Everything is changing, just so you understand. It’s all changing. But I have no idea. But every time I commit to do something — I’ve committed to do my — look, I ran and everybody knew I was a rich person. I built a great company and people knew that. But I agreed to do things I didn’t have to. I still don’t have to.
But my company — I told the kids, who are running it — I’m not running it. But I told them, “Don’t deal with foreign companies. Don’t deal…” I didn’t have to do that. I could have just ran and I have — I didn’t have to do that at all. And instead of being thanked for, again, not agreeing to do, but just not doing it, I get excoriated all the time.
So I’ve learned — let’s just see what happens because we have to save some of these great companies. They can be great companies, literally, in a matter of weeks. We have to save them.
Yeah, please.
Q Did you sell stocks Mr. President? Did you or your family sell stocks in advance of this epidemic?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I don’t have stock. I own things that —
Q Did you make any alternates to investments in advance of this pandemic?
THE PRESIDENT: No. I didn’t even think about it. You know, it’s very interesting that you ask a question like that — you know, a nasty question. And yet, it deserves to asked, I guess.
What I’ve done, by deciding to run — and I knew this. I knew this the first day. I said, “If I win, it’s going to going to cost a lot of money.” It cost me billions of dollars to become President — to be President of the United States — in things that would normally be run at a certain thing, even people that don’t like me because they think I’m too tough on the border. Now, some people love me for it; other people don’t like me at all. You know, it’s very funny.
My wife — we were at a charity event in New York City. I had just announced that I was running. And we were at the Robin Hood Foundation at the Convention Center — which now we’re going to be converting to hospitals for Governor Cuomo, right? And I was walking in and there was a smattering of boos and a smattering of cheers; I was getting both. And our very popular First Lady — she’s turned out to be very popular –people have great respect for her. But our very popular First Lady said to me, “Huh, that’s strange. I’ve never heard anybody booing you.”
That was very early on — because I think I called for strong borders or I called for something that other people don’t like, you know. And I knew this would happen. I knew it was going to happen. But the fact that I ran — and I knew as soon as I announced. When I ran, I said, “It’s going to cost me a fortune.” Not only in terms of actual costs — look at my legal costs. You people, everybody — everybody is suing me. I’m being sued by people that I never even heard of. I’m being sued all over the place — and doing very well, but it’s unfair.
But I’ll say this: In terms of running for President — and I don’t think rich people — Michael Bloomberg spent now, it was determined, almost a billion dollars and look what happened. I think it’s very hard for rich people to run for office. It’s — it’s far more costly. It’s just a — it’s a very tough thing.
Now, with all of that being said, I’m so glad I’ve done it. Because, you know, there are a lot rich people around. I’ve got a lot of rich friends, but they can’t help and they can’t do what I’ve done, in terms of helping this country. We are — we are doing things. We got sidetracked by the invisible enemy.
But, you know — what — when you look at what we’ve done, I said before, with the veterans, with — with all of the things we’ve done, especially Choice. But when you look at all of — Accountability — when you look at all of the things that we’ve done — rebuilding the military; the tax cuts, which — thank goodness we had the tax cuts because we had cushion. Oh, without that, this would have been catastrophic. We had a big cushion.
I mean, with all of the losses that you’ve seen in the stock market, we’re basically back — and with this horrible thing, if this would have happened before, you would have had nothing left. This was all cushion.
But I will say that it cost me billions of dollars to be President, and especially with all the money I could have made for the last three, four years — and I didn’t because I was being President. I have no interest in it.
I’m allowed to. You know, I don’t know if you know it — George Washington, they say he was a rich man, supposedly. Relatively rich. And he ran the presidency and he also ran his business. They say he had two desks.
Nobody complained until I came along. I got elected as a rich person, but nobody complained until I came along. So it cost me billions of dollars to be President and I am so happy I did it. Because who cares? Who cares?
I’m really happy with the job we’re doing. And I’m glad that this team and me are here for this horrible thing. I mean, it’s — a number of people have said it, but — and I feel it, actually: I’m a wartime president. This is a war. This is a war. A different kind of war than we’ve ever had.
And when you look at the economics of the war — in the past, we used to stimulate to get people jobs. Now we’re stimulating to protect people because we don’t want them to work, because we want them to stay away from each other. We don’t want them to gather. Social — social gathering. So we’re paying billions of dollars more than that so that they don’t gather, they don’t — because we have to defeat this virus. And we will.
But it cost me billions and billions of dollars to be President and I am so happy I did it.
He’s going to take the money.
The man has been bailed out of every screw-up he’s ever made and this is the crowning glory of his career. Daddy’s dead and he’s run through his inheritance. Now the taxpayers are stepping up.
He is one of the dumbest leaders in world history but he has a feral survival instinct and a lot of luck. He’ll come out of this richer than he was going in, just you watch.