# Has Trump made or spent $ on his election? \[+ Trump 2016 = Springtime Hitler?\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 13, 2016, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-trump-made-or-spent-on-his-election-trump-2016-springtime-hitler/768464 "2016-10-13T21:45:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2016, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-trump-made-or-spent-on-his-election-trump-2016-springtime-hitler/768464/1 "2016-10-13T21:45:49Z")
I heard a lot about Trump hosting events at his facilities. Don’t recall anything about how much (if any) he contributed to his own campaign. And there are apparent examples of him blurring the line between his supposed charitable foundations and his businesses. Does anyone of an accounting of whether he has run his candidacy as a for-profit venture? On a related topic - any thoughts as to the current/future impact on his various interests? NBC ran away from him early. He’s so diversified, but I wonder if being publicly reviled will have any meaningful impact on his bottomline. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2016, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-trump-made-or-spent-on-his-election-trump-2016-springtime-hitler/768464/2 "2016-10-13T22:05:32Z")
A key rule of business is never invest your own money. I have to imagine that Trump followed this wisdom, at least to a large extent. Given that he raised the rent on his campaign office when the RNC took over the campaign, it does seem like he must have been partially funding the effort himself. But, again, I doubt that it was by an extreme quantity. That said, he’s almost certainly lost out by having to abandon his TV shows, and presumably he’s been paying less attention to his businesses overall (though, if his managers are better than he is, that could be a benefit rather than a loss). In the short run, he’s almost certainly lost some money, but probably nothing he can’t afford to lose. The real question would be whether he can spin the new fame into something bigger than what he had before. I’m not sure what that would be, though. Getting a job as a talking head wouldn’t be any bigger than what he’s already lost. He’s already got a pyramid scheme in place for gullible rural folk to enter into. He’s already got a charity. Maybe he’ll be able to add a gig doing speeches. But somehow I don’t feel like that’s worth it, when you’re already a billionaire (if he is). ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2016, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-trump-made-or-spent-on-his-election-trump-2016-springtime-hitler/768464/3 "2016-10-13T22:12:50Z")
If he spends campaign money contributed by others leasing space from his own buildings at prices that are definitely to his personal advantage, then he has made a profit on those deals, at the very least. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2016, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-trump-made-or-spent-on-his-election-trump-2016-springtime-hitler/768464/4 "2016-10-13T22:18:50Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > On a related topic - any thoughts as to the current/future impact on his various interests? NBC ran away from him early. He’s so diversified, but I wonder if being publicly reviled will have any meaningful impact on his bottomline. I think the Trump “brand” has been permanently tarnished. He used to try to appeal to the newly wealthy - snob appeal. He tried to position the Trump brand as high class, only the best… “trust me”. Now? The Trump brand is synonymous with trucker hats with big writing, pussy grabbing, loud mouth bragging and racism. Trump hotels are losing business, especially among women and the wealthy. He’ll be lucky if he can brand hot pockets at this rate. His only hope is to start a media empire with his fellow women-hating bigots, where they can blame all the countries woes on the Hillary presidency. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2016, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-trump-made-or-spent-on-his-election-trump-2016-springtime-hitler/768464/5 "2016-10-13T22:24:25Z")
[This article sez:](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-businesses-profit-off-presidential-campaign-money/) > [@](#): > > During this primary season, Donald Trump made a point of not taking outside donations, but now he is. Some of Trump’s campaign money is making its way back to the candidate himself, because unlike any other candidate in modern history, Trump is using his businesses for his campaign. […] > > Donald Trump has contributed more than $52 million to his presidential campaign. […] > > But the Republican nominee has offset some of that by pouring $7.2 million dollars – just over eight percent of the money his campaign has spent through July – into his own businesses. > > Since Trump moved into the general election phase, that spending has increased. […] > > “There’s a good chance that Donald Trump’s the first candidate for president who makes money off the whole endeavor,” said Charlie Spies, a Republican election lawyer who was Mitt Romney’s CFO in 2008. “The difference with the Romney campaign – he’s a numbers guy, that he’s very cheap, I think in terms of how money is spent, so we were looking to save as much money as possible.” […] > > Throughout the campaign, he’s paid his own aviation company $5.6 million to fly his multiple planes like his luxury 757. > > He also spent more than $423,000 to rent out his private Mar-a-Lago club. And in July, Trump’s campaign paid $48,239 to rent the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester County. By comparison, holding an event for thousands of people at the nearby Westchester County Center costs about $10,000. > > On rent, the campaign has spent over $830,000 for office space at Trump Tower. In July, it paid over $169,000, up 133 percent from May. Trump officials reportedly said they expanded into more office space in anticipation of additional staff. > > “So as much as it looks like he is putting money into the campaign, he is filling space in his building that otherwise, there would be no revenue off of, so it absolutely is circular,” Spies said. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2016, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-trump-made-or-spent-on-his-election-trump-2016-springtime-hitler/768464/6 "2016-10-13T23:37:37Z")
If he loses anything on the race, he (or his accountant) will figure out how to call it a tax loss. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2016, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-trump-made-or-spent-on-his-election-trump-2016-springtime-hitler/768464/7 "2016-10-14T01:51:00Z")
He has lost, and will continue to lose, vast amounts of money. Take out $52 million of personal assets, put $8 million of that money into your businesses _as taxable purchases_? Money losing proposition no matter how you slice it. There is no way, except for his heightened position in the history books of the next 20-50 years or so, that this run will be anything but a disaster for the man. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2016, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-trump-made-or-spent-on-his-election-trump-2016-springtime-hitler/768464/8 "2016-10-14T02:21:22Z")
Ask after all of the lawsuits and other legal actions have been finalized. It’s hardly a profit if you make $20 million in 2016 and lose $200 million in 2017. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2016, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-trump-made-or-spent-on-his-election-trump-2016-springtime-hitler/768464/9 "2016-10-14T02:42:15Z")
“Heightened position in the history books of the next 20 50 years or so” In 2016 a crazed racist pussy-grabbing asshole achieved the Republican position on the national ticket. No one admits to knowing how or why… ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2016, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-trump-made-or-spent-on-his-election-trump-2016-springtime-hitler/768464/10 "2016-10-14T02:49:25Z")
Eventually a footnote in American political history, which is still better than he would’ve been remembered had he just died a NY Real Estate developer with a TV show. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2016, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-trump-made-or-spent-on-his-election-trump-2016-springtime-hitler/768464/11 "2016-10-14T03:02:09Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > “Heightened position in the history books of the next 20 50 years or so” > > In 2016 a crazed racist pussy-grabbing asshole achieved the Republican position on the national ticket. No one admits to knowing how or why… No, historians will know how and why. They’ll chronicle the whole history of the Fifth or Sixth Party System (that is, the basic alignment of political factions within this country into political parties, which realigns every so often as demographics change and fundamental social issues evolve over time; there’s some disagreement about whether we’re currently on the fifth or sixth such alignment), and how the GOP marginalized itself to the point Donald Trump, of all people, could finagle himself into a position to turn a coup into a _coup de grace_. It will be a long story, full of various civil rights movements and economic disagreements used as proxies for culture wars and how a marginalized group of Americans, gulled into being nothing more than ignorant electoral muscle for the GOP, came to take over the Republican Party and then ran it into the ground with all the grace of an angered ferret. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2016, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-trump-made-or-spent-on-his-election-trump-2016-springtime-hitler/768464/12 "2016-10-14T05:06:55Z")
Unfortunately his run has probably vastly increased sales of his various books. Plus you can bet he’ll release another book or two when he loses which his base will buy up. And if he does the media empire thing, he won’t just be a talking head, he’d presumably be the co-owner of the channel. He has at least 20-30 million “true believers” and he can peddle the same kind of stuff that Alex Jones does, just to a bigger audience. Survivalist and prepper gear, Ammo, Guns, Dodgy herbal medicines. Rather than having paid advertising I can see him doing licensing deals so he’s getting a cut of everything sold through his channel. Very probably he could come out ahead, but the thing is no one knows how much he’s worth now, or was worth before he started the run. So how will we know? ---
**Author:** ![SmartAlecCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SmartAlecCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAlecCat)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2016, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-trump-made-or-spent-on-his-election-trump-2016-springtime-hitler/768464/13 "2016-10-14T11:55:57Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > He has lost, and will continue to lose, vast amounts of money. Take out $52 million of personal assets, put $8 million of that money into your businesses _as taxable purchases_? Money losing proposition no matter how you slice it. Weren’t some of his contributions actually loans that can can be paid back from the campaign? Did he forgive all of them? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2016, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-trump-made-or-spent-on-his-election-trump-2016-springtime-hitler/768464/14 "2016-10-14T12:14:38Z")
Yes, he had to forgive them in July. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2016, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-trump-made-or-spent-on-his-election-trump-2016-springtime-hitler/768464/15 "2016-10-14T13:31:21Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Derleth** : > > Ask after all of the lawsuits and other legal actions have been finalized. It’s hardly a profit if you make $20 million in 2016 and lose $200 million in 2017. You’re assuming he’s capable of thinking in the long term like “next year”. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2016, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-trump-made-or-spent-on-his-election-trump-2016-springtime-hitler/768464/16 "2016-10-14T13:39:24Z")
Trump’s only power is in his role as the GOP nominee. Which ends around 11:00pm EST, 11.8.2016. If he wins, we got problems. If he loses, then the following happens: 1. He loses his secret service detail. _Immediately_. As in, they will go home that night. (I bet this unhinges him.) 2. He loses his relationship with the GOP. The people who remain _won_ their elections. They won’t care about losers. Some will, of course, but in a few days, they’ll begin to understand the paradigm has changed _again_. 3. He is facing not one, not two, not three, but multiple criminal investigations involving multiple agencies in multiple levels of government in multiple states. #TrumpRICO 4. 3,500 lawsuits with more being added daily 5. Trump Uni racketeering case: 11.28.16 6. Trump Rape case initial court dates: December 2016 7. Some of these allegations, especially the 2013 incident in Washington, are still within statute of limitations. Expect criminal investigations to be opened by ambitious DA’s in Democratic areas. 8. Somebody is pissed he broke the Cuban embargo. Lot’s of somebodies. Expect more to come on that as well. 9. The incoming administration is one whom he has personally and viciously attacked. They will have no reason or desire to call off any hounds. (You can say the same thing about the FBI. They, too, will be monitoring developments closely. 😉 ) 10. The revenues to his company’s have dropped precipitiously. 11. Trump has an empire of debt. Debt must be serviced (i.e., paid). That requires cash. See point 10. 12. Much of Trump’s debt is in foreign banks. Bankruptcy, again, is inevitable. More exposure. 13. This campaign has cost him $52 million. He _might_ recoup some of that with the expenses paid to his properties - even with inflated prices, he might be able to pocket all of $2 million once the cash winds its way into his pockets. (I don’t know about the books, but he will be paid his base royalty on them. The surcharges - some were earmarked to his campaign, right?) 14. He might actually be dumb enough to sue the NY Times, which opens up a whole hell of a lot of shit that will be exposed in discovery. Melania might be dumb enough to sue People magazine, which brings up questions about _her_ legality. 15. His future brand is shot. No reasonable, respectable company will do business with him, personally, again. They will have trouble selling ad space on Trump TV to any but the typical cut-rate buyers on high-numbered cable channels - Juice Plus, infomercials, etc. 16. To start a TV network, a new political party around this man, requires billionaires to completely ignore everything he has done and everything that will happen because of things he’s done and pour hundreds-of-millions, billions, into building up the Donald J. Trump brand and persona. Were the man 30, I could actually see some idiot billionaire or three take a flyer at this. But he is _seventy_, with a remaining lifespan measured in years, not decades. What is the ROI projections on Trump TV? Does it make sense to spend this money, effort on a man with not-a-small likelihood of being dead within 5 years? (If they do Trump TV with a “sidekick” like Joel Osteen, priming Osteen to take Trump’s place… that might be appealing to somebody worried about lifespans. But, still, it’s a TV network that requires massive amounts of capital investments and will have a hard time attracting women viewers and advertisers who don’t want to be associated with Trump’s toxic brand.) Now, the political “movement” that he started - that likely will have ripple effects over the years. But Donald J. Trump himself? Naw. He’s a walking dead man and, what’s more, he knows it - it’s why he’s going scorched Earth. Be assured that the forces that want him gone already greatly outweigh the forces that want him in the public limelight, and after November 8th, he loses what official position he had to command this limelight. In short, he goes back to being Donald J. Trump, a man with no power and no voice except what we want to give him. Which, to 80+% of America, is none. So, to answer the question, bankruptcy looms in his future, meaning that he has spent _everything_ on this campaign and will have nothing to show for it. Other opinions about this include: Mark Cuban: [http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000559204](http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000559204) Chris Sacca: [https://twitter.com/sacca/status/786700263663005696](https://twitter.com/sacca/status/786700263663005696) ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2016, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-trump-made-or-spent-on-his-election-trump-2016-springtime-hitler/768464/17 "2016-10-14T13:44:01Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Yes, he had to forgive them in July. Since I linked to Mark Cuban’s video, saw that he argued on Sunday that Trump only forgave loans made to the campaign up to 4/19/16, meaning that potentially any loans made afterwards could be paid back, with interest, to Donald Trump. Using campaign donations. So we will see. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2016, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-trump-made-or-spent-on-his-election-trump-2016-springtime-hitler/768464/18 "2016-10-14T17:05:07Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Since I linked to Mark Cuban’s video, saw that he argued on Sunday that Trump only forgave loans made to the campaign up to 4/19/16, meaning that potentially any loans made afterwards could be paid back, with interest, to Donald Trump. Using campaign donations. > > So we will see. According to this morning’s news, the donations from some millionaires are drying up. They’ve disowned him and are sending money to the Johnson campaign. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2016, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-trump-made-or-spent-on-his-election-trump-2016-springtime-hitler/768464/19 "2016-10-14T17:17:08Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Trump’s only power is in his role as the GOP nominee. Which ends around 11:00pm EST, 11.8.2016. Everything you say is true. But one thing I will say about Trump is that he’s a survivor, he has come back from immense odds before, and despite everything you say he may go on to become an annoying and persistent voice in US politics. I hope you are right. Let’s see. ---
**Author:** ![Anny\_Middon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc79bd/32.png) [@Anny\_Middon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anny_Middon)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2016, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-trump-made-or-spent-on-his-election-trump-2016-springtime-hitler/768464/20 "2016-10-14T17:36:05Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > A key rule of business is never invest your own money. > > I have to imagine that Trump followed this wisdom, at least to a large extent. Given that he raised the rent on his campaign office when the RNC took over the campaign, it does seem like he must have been partially funding the effort himself. But, again, I doubt that it was by an extreme quantity. > > That said, **he’s almost certainly lost out by having to abandon his TV shows** , and presumably he’s been paying less attention to his businesses overall (though, if his managers are better than he is, that could be a benefit rather than a loss). > > In the short run, he’s almost certainly lost some money, but probably nothing he can’t afford to lose. The real question would be whether he can spin the new fame into something bigger than what he had before. I’m not sure what that would be, though. Getting a job as a talking head wouldn’t be any bigger than what he’s already lost. He’s already got a pyramid scheme in place for gullible rural folk to enter into. He’s already got a charity. > > Maybe he’ll be able to add a gig doing speeches. But somehow I don’t feel like that’s worth it, when you’re already a billionaire (if he is). I added the bolding, just to point out that’s an “opportunity cost” (I think that’s the right term) and not a dollars-out-of-pocket cost – I mean, not making some money he could have made is different from actually paying money. I pretty much agree with the rest of this post. Adding here rather than doing a separate post – The Chicago Tribune had an article last week about how it’s become quite the fad to take a selfie in front of the Trump building while flipping the bird. Apparently this is happening in other cities, too. I’d take this as another indication that his brand has suffered. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-trump-made-or-spent-on-his-election-trump-2016-springtime-hitler/768464.md?page=2)