A solid BusinessWeek analysis of Donald Trump:
Trump thrives on an audience and a foil, and today, inside his Trump World Tower offices in New York City, he has both. He’s sitting behind his desk, stacked with magazines and newspaper clippings about himself, discussing his proto-Presidential campaign whose sudden momentum seems to have surprised even him. His longtime chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, hovers nearby with a bunch of papers: a list of assets as of June 30, 2010, and a blue-bound report by the accounting firm WeiserMazars. “Each line’s a different asset,” Trump murmurs, running his finger down one of the pages, which lists categories such as residential properties, commercial properties, clubs, real estate licensing deals, and the Miss Universe Pageant, plus around $245 million in cash and equivalents. Then the papers are whisked away. “Most people think I’m worth two billion. They don’t know.” He adds, “You know, I don’t even have mortgages.” It turns out that he has at least one: Documents on file with the city of New York indicate there is a $160 million mortgage on 40 Wall Street, which Trump borrowed $10 million to buy in 1996.
Trump has spent years trying to bulldoze the world into believing that he is worth a great deal more than independent analyses have confirmed. He wants the doubters and the haters and the petty critics and the other real estate people to know that not only could he do a better job than President Obama – that, if he were in charge, he would kick China’s and Saudi Arabia’s butts and have jobs flowing back into the U.S. within months – but that he’s been goddamn successful at business.
A highly successful man with a profound insecurity complex – it is the stuff of great journalism. Still, the only relevant question is whether he will run, and if so, why.
Mack Lannahan 