He has a whole bunch of loyal retainers (toadies like Allen Weisselberg who do get paid) to shield him from such unpleasantness. When he’s sued, he delays and runs out the clock until they either give up or settle for pennies on the dollar. As with the dictators he so admires, contracts are mere pieces of paper to him.
I’ve directly heard the exact same story from two separate people about his M.O. When they demand payment and finally threaten to sue after months of delaying tactics he tells them to go ahead – he can outlast them. “But why bother?”, he continues, “Once people hear you worked for me you’ll make more money than whatever I might have said I’d pay you, believe me!”
As for not repaying the banks, it’s the old saying about whose problem it is depending on the amount owed. All they can do is eat the loss and not do business with him again. That’s why no reputable American bank loans him money anymore.
This will all seem ridiculous to an experienced and level-headed business person. You or I and most regulars on this BBS wouldn’t do business with him to begin with. But he’s a celebrity con artist, and there are a lot of starstruck suckers out there in Idiot America.
Same reason you probably wouldn’t get very far sending a collection agency after a Mafia Don. It’s about the power balance between the parties involved and what each one is capable of doing to the other.
It’s a lot easier to intimidate and strong-arm some poor schmuck who got behind on his car payments than it is to intimidate and strong-arm a well-moneyed former POTUS who has not only Secret Service protection but hordes of literal cultists willing to kill and/or die for him. Heck, it was nigh impossible to get Trump to pay his debts even before he had those things.
Not really a 2023 thing. He had been doing this stuff for decades. It’s just after his election that the reports moved from tabloids to mainstream media. Nothing really change about this grifter’s MO.
You can say that to all his bankers.
Being “rich” white male must be helluva of a drug.
Why the hell would the city authorities not refuse to provide a venue for the rally until paid the outstanding fees plus interest, and the fee in advance for the next event?
Reminds me of the plot of Orson Scott Card’s Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus. The world is so fucked by climate change that a group of scientists agree to cancel their own timeline by sending 3 people back to avert the catastrophes resulting from Columbus’s ‘discovery’ of the western hemisphere. Rather than strangling Columbus in his crib, they help organize indigenous groups to present a strong, united front when would-be colonizers arrive. I thought it was pretty cool book in middle school, but Card’s writing hasn’t held up for me in adult rereads.
I’ve read it more recently, and the ending was that they Christianized people in the Americas, so that they’d arrive in Europe prior to Europeans coming to the “new world”… his argument seems to be that being Christian was the reason why Europeans came out on top.
I wonder how much leeway the mayor has in just… not spending that money. Saying, “Ok, we’re not going to provide police protection, we’re not going to do the things we’d normally do for this kind of big event.” Just let traffic get snarled and chaos reign…
My understanding is that he actually isn’t required to - it’s really more of an honor system/nice thing for the candidate to do, and in fact a lot of political campaigns don’t pay, not just Trump. (Trump is just highly consistent about not paying.) It’s all basically costs the town has imposed upon itself by doing things they feel like they need to do for a political event (police for security, in addition to whatever would normally be done for large events). So the “costs” vary enormously from city to city, even for identical events. There’s no legal obligation for the candidate to pay those costs, many don’t (or are inconsistent about it), and some cities don’t even bother to ask the candidate to repay them.
Huh. Interesting. But it does make sense. If I get a permit for a march or rally, I pay the standard permit fee, but I don’t have to pay any additional fees (or, it’s been a while, I didn’t have to before).
That seems irresponsible. At a minimum, you’d want extra EMTs around, in case anyone in the crowd got heat stroke, that kind of thing.
But I think it would make sense to simply refuse the permit, based on the perceived cost of the event to the city. But…then we’re getting into sticky first amendment issues…much as I’d like to say Erie should just tell him to eff off, when I think about applying that approach to other issues/causes, it’s not that simple.
Seems like you could just lock down all the venues. When some big Broadway play comes to Tucson, they pay rent at the Tucson Community Center or they don’t get the keys. He can hold his rally at a circle-k. They don’t have to physically block Trump from entering, they block the advance team, and the electrical supplies and all the other infrastructure one needs to hold a big rally.
The city still has to provide traffic and crowd control. Those services benefit the citizens who aren’t there to sniff Lord Dampnut’s crotch.
Most people just want to drive home without getting stuck in a three hour traffic jam. And crowd control is a public safety issue. While a MAGAt may or may not deserve any consideration for convenience, they don’t deserve to die in a stampede.
That’s not what I was talking about, though. I’m thinking about the ramifications of denying permits for public demonstrations based on…what? What would make this an unlawful gathering?
I don’t want a Trump rally in my town, but I also don’t want there to be some loosey-goosey system where they could deny, say, a Pride rally but allow a Trump rally. As I mentioned, it’s just not necessarily a simple problem to solve.
Not saying it can’t be solved, but when you oversimplify it, that doesn’t seem very helpful.
But if @Shuck ’s intel is correct, they aren’t actually required to pay, it’s more an honor thing (which, we know he has none.)
So, imagine you say, okay, political candidates need to pay for the municipal support their rallies require. Then you’re getting into “pay to play” stuff.
And, would a BLM rally need to pay? Kids marching against gun violence?
I’m not trying to be contrary, at all, I just don’t know what it would look like to say this guy can’t hold a public demonstration without seeming to say other groups could be blocked or priced out, too.
Normally with a political candidate, public shaming might be an option, but again, he has no shame.
