Things Donald Trump Hopes You Don't Remember
President Donald Trump is in the final weeks of a presidency that has been rocked with a number of controversies, from impeachment to pardons to a seemingly endless stream of tweets. It can be difficult to keep track of all the details within the 24-hour news cycle, and it's hard to perhaps know exactly what's real and what's 'fake news' considering that, according to The Washington Post, Trump averages 50 lies a day.
Having his words and tweets labeled at times inaccurate hasn't stopped "The Donald" from spinning his own version of the world and his time in office. Many of his tweets have gotten labels like "This claim about election fraud is disputed" and "Multiple sources called this election differently". He seems to thrive on drama and attention and being in the spotlight. However, there are some things that Trump probably hopes get forgotten about in the story of his life.
Ivana Trump alleged rape during a divorce deposition
Ivana Trump was Donald Trump's first wife, and the two were a Manhattan power couple in the '80s, but the relationship ended after Donald had an affair with Marla Maples. In the book Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump, the author revealed that in a divorce deposition, Ivana said her husband had raped her (via Los Angeles Times).
According to The Daily Beast, at the behest of Donald and his lawyers, a statement from Ivana was included with each book that read, "During a deposition given by me in connection with my matrimonial case, I stated that my husband had raped me, [O]n one occasion during 1989, Mr. Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently toward me than he had during our marriage. As a woman, I felt violated, as the love and tenderness, which he normally exhibited towards me, was absent. I referred to this as a 'rape,' but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense."
It came up again in 2016. When The Daily Beast asked about it, Michael Cohen, then the president's lawyer, explained how he saw the situation, "She felt raped emotionally ... She was not referring to it [as] a criminal matter, and not in its literal sense, though there's many literal senses to the word." Cohen also said, incorrectly, "You cannot rape your spouse. There's very clear case law."
Trump's refusal to release his tax returns
According to Investopedia, every U.S. president from Carter to Obama has released their tax returns. In 2014, it sounded like Donald Trump would as well when he told Ireland AM he would release his taxes. "If I decide to run for office, I'll produce my tax returns, absolutely." But his tune had changed by the time he ran for office.
He tweeted in 2016, "In [an] interview I told @AP that my taxes are under routine audit and I would release my tax returns when audit is complete, not after election!" Guess the audit is still ongoing? We do have some info on his taxes, after an investigation. The New York Times published a story in the fall of 2020 saying Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and in 2017, paying no income tax in ten of the past 15 years.
After the story broke, Trump vented on Twitter, writing, "The Fake News Media, just like Election time 2016, is bringing up my Taxes & all sorts of other nonsense with illegally obtained information & only bad intent. I paid many millions of dollars in taxes but was entitled, like everyone else, to depreciation & tax credits....." He continued, ".....Also, if you look at the extraordinary assets owned by me, which the Fake News hasn't, I am extremely under leveraged — I have very little debt compared to the value of assets..."
Trump businesses have gone bankrupt six times
A big part of the Donald Trump narrative is that he's a savvy and self-made businessman. Neither is exactly true. The New York Times found out from some of Trump's 1995 tax records that he had business losses of $916 million. His portfolio of investments in the 1980s and 1990s included high-interest junk bonds, the Plaza Hotel, an airline, and a number of Atlantic City casinos, and everything was losing money, so much so that New Jersey casino regulators said, "The possibility of a complete financial collapse of the Trump Organization is not out of the question" (via The New York Times).
One of the ways he got out of that one was thanks to his dad. According to The Wall Street Journal, in 1991, Fred Trump gave a lawyer $3.5 million to buy casino chips at Trump Castle Casino Resort By The Bay and not cash them out. Fred was also the first one to loan Donald money, setting him into the business world with a $1 million loan, and while Donald likes to say he took that million and turned it into a $10 billion value on his own, Fred Trump continued to loan money to his son for years (via The Wall Street Journal).
The cash infusions weren't enough. Trump has declared bankruptcy for six different businesses from 1991 to 2009 (via NBC News). According to Mother Jones, the president is currently in debt to the tune of $479 million.
Trump University: the university that wasn't
Donald Trump launched Trump University to capitalize on the success of his show The Apprentice. And it sounded like it was a generous act from Trump's perspective. At a news conference for the opening of Trump University in 2005, Trump said, "If I had a choice of making lots of money or imparting lots of knowledge, I think I'd be as happy to impart knowledge as to make money" (via The Washington Post). Graduates from the program assumed, according to The New Yorker, they would be able to make big bucks from the real estate market.
Calling it a university may have lent credibility, but it was actually a series of seminars. James Harris, a Trump University instructor, explained to the Post, "I was told to do one thing. And that one thing was: ... to show up to teach, train, and motivate people to purchase the Trump University products and services and make sure everybody bought. That is it." He wasn't the only one. Ronald Schnackenberg, worked at Trump University and said in an affidavit: "Based upon my personal experience and employment, I believe that Trump University was a fraudulent scheme, and that it preyed upon the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their money."
Unhappy students ended up filing lawsuits, and Trump ended up settling for $25 million and paying $1 million in penalties. However, from USA Today, that payment didn't require Trump to acknowledge he had done anything wrong.