The Financial Minefield Awaiting an Ex-President Trump

[Zorro]

Baseless election fraud claims and the Capitol riot have compounded already-looming threats to his bottom line. And the cash lifelines he once relied on are gone.

Not long after he strides across the White House grounds Wednesday morning for the last time as president, Donald J. Trump will step into a financial minefield that appears to be unlike anything he has faced since his earlier brushes with collapse.

The tax records that he has long fought to keep hidden, revealed in a New York Times investigation last September, detailed his financial challenges:

Many of his resorts were losing millions of dollars a year even before the pandemic struck. Hundreds of millions of dollars in loans, which he personally guaranteed, must be repaid within a few years. He has burned through much of his cash and easy-to-sell assets. And a decade-old I.R.S. audit threatens to cost him more than $100 million to resolve.

In his earlier dark moments, Mr. Trump was able to rescue businesses he runs with multimillion-dollar infusions from his father or licensing deals borne of his television celebrity. Those lifelines are gone. And his divisive presidency has steadily eroded the mainstream marketability of the brand that is at the heart of his business.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/19/us/trump-finances.html

"...And while Mr. Trump maintains a vast and devoted following among working-class supporters, they are not, for the most part, the future clientele of the resorts that became magnets for suitors seeking to rub shoulders, or win favors, from a sitting president..."

[empedocles]

1. trump's grifting powers have also been eroded

[soothsayer]

2. Hope so. Thanks, twitter! And others

[Wellstone ruled]

3. Will be watching for the new

County Attorney for Fulton County Georgia to file a Voter Disenfranchise Suit against the Diaper Don Campaign. Believe she mentioned the 20th.

[dalton99a]

4. Kick

After prior challenges, Mr. Trump portrayed himself as a comeback kid, someone who independently rose above financial adversity by striking fabulous new deals. What he hid from view was the degree to which his father’s fortune and a second fortune of entertainment money — the combined equivalent today of nearly $1 billion — provided a reservoir of cash that could cover repeated failures.

In the late 1980s, as his hodgepodge empire of casinos, hotels, an airline and a football team began to collapse under the weight of excessive debt and high expenses, Mr. Trump’s father secretly stepped in, covering a $3 million interest payment here, a $15 million loss on a new apartment building there.

Later, after the financial crisis that began in 2008, Mr. Trump defaulted on huge loans on his Chicago tower, much of his commercial space went empty and his casinos neared another bankruptcy. Though disaster loomed for the businesses he was running, Mr. Trump collected more than $154 million from 2008 through 2011 from “The Apprentice” and licensing his name for use on projects run by other people.

He received the last multimillion-dollar share of his inheritance about two years ago. And the wellspring of entertainment riches had nearly dried up by the time he entered politics, falling from profits in excess of $50 million during peak years to below $3 million in 2018. (Of course, not paying his debts also played a significant role in both turnarounds.)

The Times obtained tax-return data for Mr. Trump spanning more than two decades, including information from his personal returns through 2017, and from his business returns through 2018. The records show that many of his businesses have rarely, if ever, stood on their own.

His three golf resorts in Scotland and Ireland, for example, recorded steep and consistent cash losses. Through 2018, Mr. Trump pumped an additional $66 million of cash into the three resorts in the years since they had reopened, helping keep them afloat.

The Trump International Hotel in Washington, which opened in 2016, posted cash losses each year through 2018. Mr. Trump put $17.6 million more into the hotel during those years, on top of his original investment. And the situation likely grew more bleak last year. Since the pandemic struck, the hotel has opened for overnight guests, but the bar, a popular meeting spot for government officials and Trump supporters, remains closed.