Trump lied to me about his wealth to get onto the Forbes 400.
In May 1984, an official from the Trump Organization called to tell me how rich Donald J. Trump was. I was reporting for the Forbes 400, the magazines annual ranking of Americas richest people, for the third year. In the previous edition, wed valued Trumps holdings at $200 million, only one-fifth of what he claimed to own in our interviews. This time, his aide urged me on the phone, I needed to understand just how loaded Trump really was.
The official was John Barron a name we now know as an alter ego of Trump himself. When I recently rediscovered and listened, for first time since that year, to the tapes I made of this and other phone calls, I was amazed that I didnt see through the ruse: Although Trump altered some cadences and affected a slightly stronger New York accent, it was clearly him. Barron told me that Trump had taken possession of the business he ran with his father, Fred. Most of the assets have been consolidated to Mr. Trump, he said. You have down Fred Trump [as half owner] .?.?. but I think you can really use Donald Trump now. Trump, through this sockpuppet, was telling me he owned in excess of 90 percent of his familys business. With all the home runs Trump was hitting in real estate, Barron told me, he should be called a billionaire.
At the time, I suspected that some of this was untrue. I ran Trumps assertions to the ground, and for many years I was proud of the fact that Forbes had called him on his distortions and based his net worth on what I thought was solid research.
But it took decades to unwind the elaborate farce Trump had built to project an image as one of the richest people in America. Nearly every assertion supporting that claim was untrue. Trump wasnt just poorer than he said he was. Over time I have learned that he should not have been on the first three Forbes 400 lists at all. In our first-ever list, in 1982, we included him at $100 million, but Trump was actually worth roughly $5 million a paltry sum by the standards of his super-monied peers as a spate of government reports and books showed only much later.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/opinions-trump-lied-to-me-about-his-wealth-to-get-onto-the-forbes-400-here-are-the-tapes/ar-AAw67sW?li=BBnb7Kz
Recording at link
Eliot Rosewater
(31,112 posts)Grifter, liar, thief, conman, scumbag.
But not a conman, I take that back, he is a complete idiot, con men are smart.
Every con he ran was someone else's idea, he then insisted it was actually HIS idea.
elleng
(130,973 posts)to project an image as one of the richest people in America. Nearly every assertion supporting that claim was untrue.'
Problem, of course: FEW will pay attention to the unwinding.
stillcool
(32,626 posts)what a great bullshitter. Had to run out of road sooner or later. Weird he named his son after his own alias.
Me.
(35,454 posts)Just took the word of some guy on the phone?
JI7
(89,252 posts)they just accepted the shit he said . even after they knew he was lying and there was no way what he had said was true they just accepted shit he said.
it wasn't some great con. the problem seem to be the people who just accept it.
would they have so easily been accepting of what was said if it was a woman or non white person ????
BigmanPigman
(51,609 posts)identify his distinctive voice and style of speaking. He is such a con/salesman. He repeats everything he repeats everything he repeats everything....hoping to con you into finally believing his BS.