Money rolls in for Donald Trump but his true wealth is still a mystery

While voters donate millions to the former president for a 2024 comeback, the extent of his White House dealings remain opaque.

Donald Trump learnt the art of showmanship from his fearsome father, Fred. Picture: Getty Images

Have you had a very merry Trump Christmas? If not, Don Jr will be very cross with you. The Trumps, including big Donald himself, have been bombarding supporters by email, urging them to buy “Make America Great Again” baubles for their fir trees and tasteful presents such as, “Let’s Go, Brandon!” doormats (code for F..k Joe Biden).

“I’ve been getting at least eight sales pitches a day,” the author David Cay Johnston laughs. Don Jr, the wild-eyed son, has been working himself into a particular lather, he notes.

“My favourite is the one that says, ‘I spoke to my father last night and he tells me you are the only person in America who hasn’t responded to him.’”

Funny that, as I’ve had the same begging emails, and also ignored them. They work, though. Donald Trump has raised $US250m ($345m) in donations from his supporters since losing the last election — sorry, winning it by a “landslide” — and Johnston predicts he will go on to make half a billion out of the chumps who believe his claims.

That’s on top of the $US1.7bn the Pulitzer-winning reporter claims coursed through Trump’s bank accounts during his four years in the White House — more than $US1m a day.

“He says the money is for ‘Stop the Steal’ but under the law, he can spend it on himself,” Johnston says. “This is Donald’s new business and it’s a really easy one with no work.” Trump’s new social media company is “another grift” that is inflating his coffers.

I am talking to a big teddy bear of a man who has been investigating Trump since delving into the Atlantic City casino industry in the 1980s. Trump’s finances are famously and dubiously opaque but few individuals have made a greater effort than Johnston to unpick them. He calls the former president by his first name, Donald, based on an intimacy that comes from poring over his financial affairs for more than three decades.

Turning Point USA’s America Fest 2021, a gathering of conservatives and Donald Trump supporters this month in Phoenix, Arizona. Picture: AFP

His latest work is called, The Big Cheat: How Donald Trump Fleeced America and Enriched Himself and His Family, so you know where he stands.

There are some delectable moments in the book, for all Johnston’s prosecutorial zeal. For instance: did you know that when Trump launched his bid for president in 2015 at Trump Tower in New York, he hired extras at $US50 a pop to pose by the escalator in campaign T-shirts, cheering and hollering his name? “Wow, that is some group of people. Thousands,” Trump purred, claiming it was a bigger crowd than any rival had drawn. Why, of course it was — just like the “alternative facts” about the turnout at his inauguration.

The Trump fans had been hired by Extra Mile, a New York casting agency which had emailed actors on its books: “We are looking to cast people for the event to wear T-shirts and carry signs and help cheer him in support of his announcement. We understand this is not a traditional ‘background’ job, but we believe acting comes in all forms . . . The rate for this is $50 CASH.”

The “big lie” about the stolen 2020 election started with this whopper, Johnston says. This was the “foundational lie, Lie One, of a mass upwelling of popular support ... the corrupt seed that grew into mighty crowds at rallies,” he writes.

Admittedly it takes some dark magic to puff up a crowd of hired extras in 2015 into 75 million genuine voters by the 2020 election. The truth has never been Trump’s strong point but he has a genius for self-promotion.

“This may sound strange but I’ve always admired a couple of things about Donald. One of them is his ability to sell you a lump of lead and persuade you it’s gold — and worth the price of platinum,” Johnston tells me.

Trump learnt the art of showmanship from his fearsome father, Fred, who laid on girls in skimpy bathing suits at Coney Island fairground to persuade politicians to approve tearing down the old Fun House for a branded apartment block.

In due course, Trump beat the old man at his own game. Another gem in the book — barely noticed at the time — recounts how the newly elected president paused for a stroll with Melania and Ivanka in front of the TV cameras during the 2016 inaugural parade in plain view of the Trump International hotel. Free marketing! The hotel went on to be a huge cash cow for Trump, as potentates sought to curry favour by installing large entourages in its most expensive suites.

The Saudis rented out entire floors at the hotel, the grandest in the gaudy Trump chain. The rulers of Kuwait moved their annual celebration of victory in the Gulf War to its glittering halls. At one point, the bar and restaurant alone was making $US68,000 a night — $US25m a year. The pandemic was a blow, but what really turned off the tap was Trump’s election defeat. At the time of Biden’s inauguration, I went there for a cocktail to observe its eerily deserted bar.

Trump has no use for the hotel any more. It was reportedly sold to the Hilton group for $US375m last month and will be renamed the Waldorf Astoria. Ivanka, too, made money during her father’s presidency.

Us President Joe Biden’s competence has been challenged by the resurgence of the pandemic, the retreat from Afghanistan and return of inflation. Picture: AFP

Her children serenaded Chinese President Xi Jinping in Mandarin at Trump’s “winter White House” at Mar-a-Lago while she was gaining approval for valuable fashion and homeware trademarks in record time from Beijing. Johnston estimates that Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, raked in at least $US172m from outside activities while working inside the White House.

He believes the former president took advantage of blue-collar workers who were tired of seeing their wages stagnate and jobs disappear, added a dollop of racism to his talent for showmanship and — hey presto — the White House was his. The media, he added, played right into the attention-seeker’s hands.

Yet, this time last year, Trump was being written off. Having lost the election he was $US400m in debt, facing potential criminal and civil charges, and supposedly finished as a politician. The ability to leverage what began as a whine about his defeat into a mass hallucination among Republican supporters that is powering his potential comeback requires a bit more adroitness than Trump is usually credited with (as well as a stupendous level of voter credulity).

Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s competence has been challenged by the resurgence of the pandemic, the retreat from Afghanistan and return of inflation.

Johnston remains convinced Trump will get his comeuppance. He predicts the former president will face several indictments in New York and elsewhere that will “push him over the edge”, as well as congressional hearings into the Capitol riot on January 6 that will destroy his credibility.

Last week, Trump sued Letitia James, the New York attorney general, seeking to halt her inquiry into his organisation’s questionable business practices — either a sign he is rattled or that he is not giving up the fight.

“When the Watergate hearings were on, they changed the country’s whole attitude to Richard Nixon,” Johnston reminds me.

Trump’s support is waning, he asserts, and he doubts he will run for the presidency again. Perhaps he is right, but it is exactly what I thought this time last year.

The Times