A New York Times investigation based on internal Trump Organization documents suggests that Donald Trump was a lot shorter on cash before he returned to the White House than commonly understood. It illuminates once more how Trump has exaggerated his supposed business acumen — and what may be motivating his dogged pursuit of new business ventures as president.
The Times reports that last year Trump's office building in lower Manhattan "generated too little cash to cover its mortgage," many of his golf courses had too few customers to cover costs, and the money that used to come in from his work in television had "dried up."
The data suggests that as Trump entered office the second time, he was desperate for cash.
Long before entering politics, Trump had a well-established track record of failed businesses and financial mismanagement. But it's possible that his first term in office made things worse. The Times reported that a 2021 appraisal of Trump's highest revenue resort, the Trump National Doral, found that he had spent $379 million renovating it — but that it was worth only $297 million. The appraisal, conducted by the firm Newmark, found that while "Doral, like several of Mr. Trump’s properties, was known to benefit from people looking to buy proximity to a president during Mr. Trump’s first term, his managers believed even more potential customers stayed away because of him."
Regardless of the cause, the Times' investigation found that Trump had little cash on hand in recent years given the size of his business empire — and then came the tremendous costs of legal fees during both his trials and hundreds of millions from penalties from civil lawsuits.
The data suggests that as Trump entered office the second time, he was desperate for cash, which might explain at least some the tenacity with which he has hung onto his shares of Truth Social. It also likely explains why he and his family have pursued so many new ventures and licensing deals for the Trump Organization, ranging from watches to cryptocurrency to a mobile phone service. With the power of the presidency once again linked to the Trump name, the president and his family have fresh sources of money coming in to help his longtime businesses and expand his fortune. Trump's most recently launched businesses have increased his fortune by billions.
To be clear, Trump wasn't on the brink of becoming a pauper if he didn't start finding new ways to generate cash — he could've sold parts of his business off to become more liquid. But as far as the story of Trump is concerned, the new information highlights the gap between his incessant boasts about being a brilliant businessman and the less glamorous reality of how his businesses were functioning. And it sheds light on the urgency with which Trump launched new ventures which have generated appalling financial conflicts of interest that are even worse in his second term than his first. All in all, it's less "art of the deal" and more "art of the scramble."