We learned this week that the Electoral College victor of the U.S. presidential election will continue to act in an unethical, unorthodox and unimaginably corrupt fashion as U.S. President. He was installed as supreme leader thanks to a joint Republican and Russian meddling scheme which he claims is not true, evidence be damned. Why should he change his behavior just because he's the Leader of the Free World?
Donald is, if anything, consistent, as he always stoops to the most unprincipled levels of moral and financial bankruptcy. As a paid producer, the Mango Mussolini is keeping his stake in "Celebrity Apprentice," but claims to be divesting his own real estate businesses by transferring operations to his adult sons. Normal people would consider that to be the same as owning it himself, but the rules don't apply to this man, nor do they appear to concern other Republicans, for that matter. On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace asked him about this clear conflict of interest.
TRUMP: Well, essentially I'm not going to have anything to do with the management of the company.
WALLACE: I know, but isn't that a huge conflict of interest, sir?
TRUMP: When I ran, everybody knew that I -- I was a very big owner of real estate all over the world. I mean, I'm not going to have anything to do with the management of the company. You know, when you sell real estate, that's not like going out and selling a stock. That takes a long time. It takes -- I have -- I'm going to have nothing to do with it. And I’ll -- I'll be honest with you, I don't care about it anymore. I'm so focused on doing a great job as president, I don't care if our rent (INAUDIBLE) goes up a little bit or down. I couldn’t care less.
WALLACE: But you hammered --
TRUMP: My -- my executives will run it with my children. It's a big company. It's a great company. But I'm going to have nothing to do with management. I --
WALLACE: But you hammered Hillary Clinton over the Clinton Foundation and pay --
TRUMP: Well, that's different because --
It's different because that money went to charity and he has profited personally. So it's absolutely different, because I can't imagine the Republican majority in Congress be so unconcerned if Hillary Clinton won. If you're a Republican and a dictator-elect, no rules apply. He continues to peddle the lie that she and the State Department acted in unison to make her lots of money.
TRUMP: She's taken in massive amounts of money from foreign countries and other things.
WALLACE: And pay-to-play.
Fox rolls a clip from the end of August where he claims the CGI or Clinton Foundation as he puts it, is inextricably linked to the State Department, which is provably false. Even based on that false assumption, Wallace wants to know how this is different. Trump's answer is typically vague and useless.
TRUMP: This is different.
WALLACE: Well, wait a minute, you're going to be making a massive amount of money... Wait, wait, country -- wait, wait, foreign -- foreign countries are already booking events at the Trump Hotel in D.C. You've got business operations, deals with foreign countries. I mean isn’t this on --
TRUMP: Chris, this is all stuff that’s done --
WALLACE: Isn’t this on steroids that --
TRUMP: No. No.
WALLACE: Foreign interests trying to curry favor with the president of the United States.
TRUMP: If I were going to do new deals right now, I am turning down billions of dollars of deals. I will tell you, running for president, the money I spent is peanuts compared to the money I won't make. And that's OK because this is so important. What I'm doing is so important.
This is a calling. This is so -- this is a movement. It’s not just me, it's millions and millions of people. You got to see it firsthand. I'm not going to be doing deals at all. No, that would be -- I don't even know if that's a conflict. I mean I -- I have the right to do it. You know under the law I have the right to do it. I just don't want to do it. I don't want to do deals because I want to focus on this.
But by my not doing deals, I turned down seven deals with one big player, great player, last week because I thought it could be perceived as a conflict of interest.
As far as his kids running the show, Trump says:
They're not making deals. And they're going to run my company. I have a lot of property and great stuff. They're going to run it. They’re going to run it. Hopefully they're going to run it properly. I'm sure they're going to run it properly. But I'm not going to do deals. And I think, you know, I think that's going to be good.
Since this is a movement, and he says so, the rules don't apply. Clearly, pay-to-play is okay when you're a tyrannical megalomaniac.
