Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump appeared to be wrapping up a victory speech at his sprawling Mar-a-Lago club earlier this week when he turned to the negative ads flooding the airwaves against him.
“I’m with these wonderful people from Cadillac and all these top executives, and I’m saying, ‘Look over there! Look! Don’t watch it! No, you don’t want to watch it!’ “ Trump said, re-enacting how he tried to distract them. “I’m saying, ‘Isn’t the grass beautiful? Look, look. Don’t watch!’ “
It was a rare light moment in an often-heated campaign that offered a glimpse into the way the billionaire businessman’s campaign has transformed his day-to-day life. But it also underscored something deeper: As he crisscrosses the country delivering speeches at rallies and calling into cable news shows, Trump’s business ventures are never far from his mind and have been playing an increasingly prominent role in his campaign.
From the beginning of his campaign, Trump has pointed to his business success as his fundamental qualification for the job of president. He likes to say his “whole life” has been about making money, and now he wants to make money for the US. He often references his assets and projects — from the skating rink in Manhattan’s Central Park, which he rebuilt, to his many skyscrapers — as evidence of what distinguishes him from what he describes as the “all talk, no action politicians.”
Trump’s financial disclosure form released in July listed nearly 500 business entities owned at least partially by Trump, according to the campaign, as well as income from a web of sources ranging from royalties from his books to stocks and speaking fees.
But Trump often sounds like he’s promoting products he profits from, such as the WGC-Cadillac Championship. Of particular pride in recent months has been his transformation of Washington, DC’s Old Post Office Pavilion into a hotel.
“We’re building a magnificent hotel,” Trump bragged to the crowd gathered at a Tampa convention centre for a town hall-style event this week. “I don’t even like to say that I’m two years ahead of schedule. I am actually two years ahead. I don’t like to say it. You know why? You know why? Because it doesn’t sound believable.”
Trump’s business ventures have also left him open to attack from his rivals. Lawsuits filed against Trump’s now-defunct “Trump University” business course programme by former students accusing him of fraud, for instance, have been featured in attacks ads and the issue has been raised on the debate stage. And Trump, who is synonymous with his brand, has been fighting back, at one point having staff set up displays of various Trump-branded products at a recent event to try to prove that the products were still in existence. (The steak on display in fact came from a local distributor.)
Trump’s campaign did not respond to questions about how much time the businessman-turned-politician has spent juggling his business projects while on the campaign trail. He’s said in the past that his children and trusted executives have been taking on more and more responsibility for daily management and that he expects to turn his whole portfolio over to his children if he’s elected president.
There’s no legal prohibition against a candidate spending his own money or talking about his business ventures while campaigning, said Paul S. Ryan of the Campaign Legal Center. But Ryan said it’s nonetheless unusual to have a candidate for federal office not only speak so frequently about his businesses but also own such a large number of diverse companies.
2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney, for instance, spent relatively little time talking about how he’d made his fortune at Bain Capital, as did 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry.
