After Years of Left's Allegations That Trump Used His Office to Enrich Himself, We Have Our First Look at What the Presidency Did to His Finances
Throughout Donald Trump’s presidency, the left accused him of abusing his office to enrich himself. According to a new report, those accusations are far from the truth.
Forbes estimates that as of Monday, Trump’s net worth is around $2.5 billion. That is a $2 billion decrease from the time he announced his candidacy in 2015, according to Fox Business.
Trump famously decided not to take a salary for his role as president, which initially made it hard for liberals to claim he was trying to enrich himself. Eventually, they found a new line of attack.
They decided to accuse Trump of using the presidency to promote his businesses.
In 2019, an opinion article in USA Today provided one of many examples of this line of attack. The article was written in response to Trump’s bid to host the G-7 summit at his Doral resort in Florida.
“Hosting the summit at Doral would compel the federal government to spend money at the resort and could potentially require foreign governments to do the same,” contributor Noah Bookbinder wrote.
“The result would be an enormous windfall for the president and his business, not to mention publicity and promotion of the property — an advertising campaign money could not buy.”
An opinion article in U.S. News & World Report accused Trump of similar corruption in 2018.
“Without precedent in U.S. history we have a president who sees profit as the natural and immediate spoils of office,” Robert Schlesinger wrote.
First of all, that is an objectively false claim. In fact, the president immediately preceding Trump, Barack Obama, went from a no-name politician to a multi-millionaire during his time in office.
According to Australia’s Financial Review in 2018, the Obamas were worth 3o times more than they were before Barack Obama took office.
“From the time he joined the US Senate in 2005 to the end of his presidency, Obama made $US20 million alone from his presidential salary, book royalties, and investments,” the outlet reported, citing a Forbes report.
“And based on all the projects he has taken on in the short time since leaving the White House, we can only expect him to make many millions more.”
If you think Obama did not have profit on his mind during his presidency — or while he was trotting around touting his new memoir — you’re fooling yourself.
Furthermore, there is actual evidence of Obama profiting from the presidency, unlike Trump. The media’s claims of Trump enriching himself are largely unsubstantiated.
Since before the time he was even elected, Trump said his concern was for America and not his own profit.
“It wouldn’t matter to me,” he told John Dickerson of CBS News in October 2015 of his businesses’ profits if he were to be elected. “I have a chance at making America great again; that’s the whole focus.”
For four years, Trump endured financial loss and vicious personal attacks as he put America first. Even now, he continues to face such attacks from the establishment media.
There are a lot of things you can say about Trump’s presidency, but the idea that he enriched himself is not one of them.
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