If you’re in the market for business advice, here’s a pearl of wisdom: steer clear of tips from the self-proclaimed “king of debt” who’s now hawking sneakers, watches, and Bibles—clearly, he’s down to his last lifeline.
If even divine intervention isn’t saving Donald Trump, how one can expect the grifter-in-chief to miraculously steer the entire nation to economic paradise? In an interview with Bloomberg‘s Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait on Oct.15, Trump once again sang the praises of his beloved tariff scheme. His brilliant plan? To save America’s economy by slapping taxes (that, by the way, even Mark Cuban thinks is a bad idea) on anything that so much as looks at us funny. According to Trump, the key to prosperity is making everything more expensive and ticking off our trading partners.
Micklethwait argues proposal will “take many, many, many years” to manifest any tangible effects. Trump’s myopic scheme blithely ignores the time and resources necessary for such a colossal upheaval. Uprooting entire supply chains, conjuring up new factories, and whipping workforces into shape can’t be achieved with a snap of the fingers, no matter how fervently Trump wishes it so.
Does he think if he just yells “America First” loud enough, jobs will magically materialize out of thin air? Analysts warn that this could send inflation skyrocketing by a 2 percentage point in a single year and could cost the average American family between $1,350 and $3,900 annually due to increased prices on imported goods.
Micklethwait didn’t hold back, though, exposing the dodgy gray matter (he claims it’s the “MIT” kind) beneath Trump’s perished furry mammal toupee. “Three trillion worth of imports and you will add tariffs to every single one of them, and push up the cost for all of these people to buy foreign goods,” he broke it down. “That is just simple mathematics.”
When confronted with a Wall Street Journal report projecting that his half-baked proposals could add a staggering $7 trillion to the national debt, Trump’s mature, presidential response was to physically recoil into his chair like a bratty toddler, cross his arms and hurl insults at the interviewer. “You’ve been wrong all your life on this stuff,” he told the interviewer.
As the trainwreck of an interview unfolded, shares of the Trump Media & Technology Group – the company propping up Trump’s online safe space, Truth Social – went into a death spiral. The stock price cratered by over $5 in a single trading session, triggering a panic-induced trading halt on the NASDAQ. Chef Trump cooked up quite the disaster for himself.
Trump has a reverse Midas touch – everything he touches turns to dust
In the past year alone, Trump’s company bled out a staggering $58 million while managing to scrape together a paltry $4.1 million in revenue. His spectacularly disastrous business track record should come as a surprise to absolutely no one. We’re talking about a man who has driven multiple businesses into the ground and declared bankruptcy six times.
First, the Trump Taj Mahal, which opened in 1990, was supposed to be the crown jewel of his casino empire. Burdened by over $800 million in debt, the casino filed for bankruptcy just a year after its grand opening. Trump’s other Atlantic City properties, including Trump Plaza and Trump Castle, also fell victim to his financial recklessness, with each of them filing for bankruptcy in the following years. In 2006, he launched Trump University, which promised to teach students the secrets of real estate success. The company was hit with multiple lawsuits alleging fraud, and Trump ultimately settled for $25 million without admitting any wrongdoing. Other Trump ventures that have crashed and burned include Trump Airlines, Trump Vodka, Trump Steaks, and Trump Mortgage. Clearly, everything he touches turns to crap.
If only Trump had kept Whoopi on stage longer, maybe no one would’ve noticed the financial meltdown — or at least it could’ve softened his “casino-killer-in-chief” rep. Maybe what he really needs is a tall glass of raw milk. A sip of that unpasteurized brain tonic could have helped him make some better decisions, or so Marjorie Taylor Greene might argue.