Third World Has Come To America

Trump Campaign Pays Trump Businesses Big

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has paid his family's businesses more than $8.2 million, according to a POLITICO analysis of campaign finance filings, which reveals an integrated business and political operation without precedent in national politics.

In all, the Trump campaign’s payments to Trump-owned businesses account for about 7 percent of its $119 million spending total, the analysis found.

Trump, on the other hand, appears to have structured his businesses in a way that lets the campaign use them without legal restriction. And he certainly doesn’t appear to feel any embarrassment about flouting political norms that typically compel candidates to distance themselves from their businesses during campaigns.

Quite to the contrary, Trump has used the campaign itself as a marketing platform to promote everything from the difficult-to-find Trump Steaks to his golf courses and a new Washington hotel.

Trump, who in 2000 predicted “I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it"

The degree to which Trump or his corporations may be benefiting from his campaign is unclear, partly because the financial and legal structures of his businesses — and their relationships with his campaign — remain opaque. Trump has stubbornly refused to release his taxes, which could shed light on the issue.

One of Trump’s primary election victory speeches in March, held at Mar-a-Lago, was widely lampooned as an infomercial for Trump-branded steaks, water, magazines and wine.

And last week, he lured the political press corp to his new Washington hotel by promising a revelation about his longstanding allegations that President Obama was born overseas, which he finally disavowed. Before getting to that, though, he took the opportunity to promote the hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue in the Old Post Office.

This is what happens in Third World dictatorships. You acquire power and then you enrichen yourself with that power.

Trump is shameless, would you say?