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Back in February, Donald Trump Jr. flew to India where, in between shilling $1.5 million condos and holding intimate chats for a very reasonable $38,000 booking fee, he told the world how tough the presidency has been on the spawn of Donald Trump. During an interview with an Indian television station, POTUS’s eldest son explained that narratives about the Trump family taking advantage of their father’s new gig are totally off the mark, because they ignore the many sacrifices the family has had to make. When the haters and losers talk about the Trump Organization “profiteering from the presidency and all this nonsense,” Donny groused, they fail to mention “the opportunity cost of the deals that we were not able to do.” That, Junior said, is “sort of a shame. Because we put on all these impositions on ourselves and essentially got no credit for actually doing that . . . for doing the right thing.”
Take, for instance, the saga of the Trump International Hotel & Tower Panama. After The Apprentice host declared his candidacy for president, and embarked on one of the most hateful campaigns in modern U.S. history, many people with ties to the real-estate developer decided they wanted nothing to do with him. But for the unfortunate collection of condominiums and hotels whose buildings bore the dreaded t-word in enormous gold letters, which had basically become the equivalent of hanging a giant banner from an 18th-floor window proclaiming, We love racist blowhards of debatable mental stability and questionable moral conduct, severing relations was easier said than done. While a few condos were able to rid themselves of the Trump name, thanks to the fact that their licensing deal with the Trump Organization had expired, others, such as the Panama hotel, were not so lucky, despite arguing that the shiny lettering was costing them serious business. (“It’s a financial bloodbath,” one businessman who owns three units at the Panama hotel told the Washington Post in January. “There is definitely a stigma on the name,” added a realtor. “There [are] a lot of unhappy owners.”) Finally, after a heated back and forth between the hotel’s majority owner, Orestes Fintiklis, and the Trump Organization, which culminated in a standoff that involving the barricading of offices, the cutting of power, and a protest song, police stormed the lobby and evicted the Trump Organization staff. On March 27, an arbitrator ruled that while the org should not have been ousted while arbitration was ongoing, he would not reinstate management. And hey, that must have been really tough on Donny and Eric, who took over day-to-day operation of the company after daddy got a new job. But at least they didn’t do anything shady in the process, raising questions about the overlap between the company in which Trump retains a financial stake, and the presidency. Except, of course, that’s exactly what they did.
According to a new report from the Associated Press, days before the arbitrator made his decision, Britton & Iglesias, the law firm representing the Trump Organization in the matter, sent a letter to Panama President Juan Carlos Varela, “URGENTLY request[ing his] influence in relation to a commercial dispute involving Trump Hotel aired before Panama’s judiciary.” It also warned that there might be consequences for Panama if Varela failed to do so. What might those consequences be, and would they be along the lines of the U.S. coincidentally supporting a blockade of Qatar after the nation refused to cough up financing for Jared Kushner’s family’s doomed Midtown tower? Unclear! What is clear, however, is that the letter sure looks like the Trump Organization was trying to use the influence of the White House to get its way in a private, commercial matter. “President Trump and the family Trump Organization are using the presidency of the United States improperly for their personal business,” Roberto Eisenmann, the founder of Panama paper La Prensa, said Monday. “It is something somewhat embarrassing to see a president of the United States in that situation.” According to the A.P., the letter was copied to the presidents of the Panama Supreme Court, Panamanian Cabinet officials, and the National Assembly, among others. In a statement, Panama’s Foreign Secretary Isabel de Saint Malo said that the letter, which she also received, “urges Panama’s executive branch to interfere in an issue clearly of the judicial branch.”
All of which, of course, is business as usual for the people surrounding Donald J. Trump, whose Cabinet is involved in an ongoing battle to determine which of its members is the most corrupt, whose son-in-law’s family business is receiving loans worth more than half a billion dollars following key meetings in the White House that all parties maintain are totally legit, and whose favorite-daughter’s business is being conveniently spared from the trade war he says farmers may be hurt by, but will emerge from “stronger.” If everyone else is getting a piece, why shouldn’t sentient concussions Donny and Eric?
Alan Garten, general counsel of the Trump Organization, did not respond to questions from the A.P. regarding whether or not Trump knew about the letter. Requests for comment from Britton & Iglesias were not immediately answered.
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Larry Summers can’t decide if Trump is a terrorist or a dictator
Commenting on the president’s ongoing attacks on Amazon, the former Treasury secretary told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, “What is not the job of the president of the United States is to go on a jihad against a company because he does not like the activities of a newspaper that is privately owned by its C.E.O.” That, Summers said, “is something that should be deeply concerning to businesspeople everywhere.” Summers added that the unhinged Twitter campaign against Amazon, reportedly stemming from an “obsession” with taking down Jeff Bezos, is similar to life in Italy under Benito Mussolini and that it shouldn’t be the case in a democracy that “one company can be singled out at one moment, and another company can be singled out at another moment.”
Trump’s tax cuts to thank for looming fiscal catastrophe: C.B.O.
Nothing to see here, just the threat of a massive fiscal crisis thanks to the bill formerly known as the “Cut, Cut, Cut Act”:
Sure, the report notes that the tax overhaul will grow the economy by an average of 0.7 percent over the next 10 years. But that growth “does not come close” to paying for the tax bill, which will add more than $1.8 trillion to deficits for the same time period. “The C.B.O.’s report exposes the staggering costs of the G.O.P. tax scam and Republicans’ contempt for fiscal responsibility,” Representative Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. “In their craven haste to give corporations and the wealthiest 1 percent massive tax breaks, Republicans saddled our children and grandchildren with trillions of dollars of debt.”
And while Republicans will likely blame this news on things like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, or what people like Paul Ryan like to call “entitlements,” a group of economists that includes former Fed chair Janet Yellen would appreciate a little perspective, writing in The Washington Post Sunday:
That argument, of course, is unlikely to sway the Ryans of the world, who have been fantasizing about taking away health insurance from the poor and sick since they were small children.
Ray Dalio: the chance of every kind of war you can think of has increased
Trade, economic, shooting—they’re all on the table:
Sleep tight, everyone!
Goldman’s C.E.O. won’t let new job title eat into D.J.’ing gig
While some people might get all I’m going to be the next C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs, I don’t have time to spin E.D.M. in the D.J. booth anymore, David Solomon, a.k.a. D.J. D-Sol, is thankfully not one of them:
Elsewhere!
F.B.I. agents raid Michael Cohen’s New York Hotel (The Hive)
Trump Calls Michael Cohen Raid ‘Disgraceful’ (New York)
U.S. watchdog seeks record fine against Wells Fargo for abuses (Reuters)
Citigroup wants pot dispensary to stop using its logo (NYP)
Vornado Says It Has ‘Handshake’ for Kushners to Buy It Out of 666 Fifth Ave. (Bloomberg)
Deustche Bank hired it’s new C.E.O. not because he was the top candidate but because “he was there” (Bloomberg)
Slammed by Trump, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Chooses Silence (Washington Post)
Another Goldman exec dumps Wall Street for crypto world (CNBC)
Ethics watchdog says E.P.A. chief Scott Pruitt’s rent deal, expenses, travel raise troubling red flags (CNBC)
London Bar Has a Drink Menu for Dogs (The Daily Meal)