Josh Dawsey, David A. Farenthold and Jonathan O'Connell of The Washington Post have a piece today that portrays a Trump brand in serious decline. From banks to social-media platforms to vendors for hotels to golf organizations, the VSG and his family are looking at a bone-dry landscape when they depart Washington.
In the past week, it has lost a bank, an e-commerce platform and the privilege of hosting a world-famous golf tournament, and its hopes of hosting another have been dashed. In the future, the Trump Organization also could lose its District of Columbia hotel and even its children's carousel in Central Park, if government landlords in Washington and New York reevaluate their contracts with Trump.
By refusing to acknowledge that he would be returning to private life, Trump appears to have sabotaged what could have been his best chance at success in that realm - a rebound of the battered Trump brand.
The VSG was nobody's idea of a great business partner beforehand, but his antics of late have really fouled the nest:
"Most financial institutions and investors avoided doing business with him before he ran for president, and the situation now has only gotten worse," said Kathryn Wylde, the leader of the Partnership for New York City, an influential group that includes the leaders of banks and Fortune 500 companies.
Wylde secured support for an open letter against Trump's efforts to overturn the election from almost 200 major companies - including most of the major banks and real estate firms in New York - within 36 hours, a sign of how angry many are with his actions. That was before Wednesday's riot
"If he remains a visible player, no one will want to be associated with him in any kind of public way, because he is going to symbolize the destabilization of the American political system," Wylde said.
Apparently the PGA pulling out of Bedminster particularly set him off. I'd read elsewhere that, for a while, he was more preoccupied with that than with the losing-the-election stuff - and certainly stuff like the pandemic and the ongoing cyberattack. You know, the stuff that a president would be deeply focused on if he had any interest in leading.
He'd been increasingly behind the eight ball for some time:
Four Trump-branded hotels had closed. The company's plans for new hotel chains had fizzled. The remaining hotels had been hit by political backlash, and then by the pandemic, which has devastated the hospitality industry: At Trump's Chicago hotel in the fall, the managing director told investors, "It's going to be very, very tough to keep the boat afloat."
The D.C. hotel's BLT Prime restaurant had quietly lost its decorated chef, David Burke, who told The Washington Post on Tuesday that he left in the fall after ESquared Hospitality, the New York-based company that operates the upscale steakhouse, ended his contract. Burke said it was probably because of the economics of the pandemic.
Trump has at times railed about business losses resulting from his being president, a senior administration official said, complaining in the Oval Office that the scrutiny and bad publicity were costing him "billions."
Trump also is facing state-level investigations into his financial practices in New York, and more than $400 million in loans will come due in the next few years.
But in the last week, the momentum has gathered:
The first backlash fell upon, of all things, the Trump website that sells candles and T-shirts.
Trumpstore.com had been hosted by the e-commerce website Shopify until last week.
"Shopify does not tolerate actions that incite violence," the company said. As of Tuesday evening, the site was still down.
Then Trump lost the real estate broker working to sell his D.C. hotel. He lost the PGA Championship, one of golf's four majors, which was scheduled to be played at his Bedminster, N.J., club in 2022. The event would have given him a massive spotlight in a sport he loves.
In Britain, Trump's hopes of landing another major golf tournament - the British Open - were dashed when the organizers said they would not use Trump's Turnberry club in Scotland for "the foreseeable future."
This week, Trump lost his accounts at New York's Signature Bank, which gave back the money and put out a statement telling him to resign. New York City said it was "reviewing whether legal grounds exist" to terminate Trump's contracts for ice rinks, the carousel and the city-owned golf course.
Also on Tuesday, Professional Bank - a Florida entity that lent Trump's company $11.2 million in 2018 to buy the president's sister's home near Mar-a-Lago - said it would no longer do business with Trump.
"Professional Bank has decided not to engage in any further business with the Trump Organization and its affiliates, and will be winding down the relationship effective immediately," the bank said in a statement. Trump also has a money market account at the bank worth at least $5 million, according to his most recent financial disclosure. The bank's decision was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
To all actual conservatives - those of us who didn't vote for the VSG either time, and who have pointed out examples of his unfitness as they came along over the last five years - I say: We've been vindicated. And we can take a moment to bask in the knowledge that we don't own any of this.
Rebuilding a viable conservative movement is going to be a Herculean task, but I don't think having Trumpism as competition is going to be one of our major challenges.
Now, if we can just get him out of the White House in the next six days.
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