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I think they’re disputing a couple of line items in Giuliani’s billing about his stay at the Four Seasons.
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Not making any statement about your status, but quick clarification that if you’re responding to me I mentioned emotional health, not mental health. I had been emotionally…shall we say “downtrodden,” and I think the same can come from loneliness, isolation, etc. It wasn’t a statement comparing being conned to mental unhealthiness.
ETA: maybe the term “emotionally well-adjusted” is more apt. I’m not sure. I wasn’t, and so was vulnerable. But I don’t mean to use denigrating terminology.
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I didn’t mean to say that you were mentally ill, if that is how it looked. I just meant to say that people who are doing exceptionally well and are very honest, can still be susceptible to scams. If anything, you would expect honest people to also expect other people to be honest and thus be less guarded against being conned. You can look at this as a kind of vulnerability but it is the kind that generally leads to living a better happier life.
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Considering the evident quality of the legal advice Rudy has been giving trump, trump may have a point on this one.
That’s understandable - just getting a hit on one’s grift-dar fighting for dominance over the magic spell cast by the grifter. But Trump has well established form - it’s not just a hypothetical at this point, it’s a given. And it’s especially baffling for someone like Pence, who has been, by all reports, badly treated by Trump during the last four years. (Pence basically being completely ignored by Trump, and only part of anything because Pence invites himself to everything in the absence of any sort of organization.)
I think at this point, the people Trump is screwing over are people who have existed within a space where they’ve always been treated a particular way due to their importance. There were always norms that everyone else of similar status was constrained by, just because of an ongoing “Prisoner’s dilemma” where they lose out eventually if they ignore them. But Trump’s not part of that world and doesn’t care (or understand) when he’s breaking norms and burning bridges. He’s spent his life burning bridges and then moving on to new pastures (and new bridges to burn), with no repercussions. I think people around him are ignoring who he is to a large degree because they’re so stuck in a particular mindset they can’t escape.
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No, I didn’t take it personally. I’d mentioned one thing and it looked like you responded with a different term, so wanted to clarify. We’re good.
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“He said he’d cover but you know he won’t.”
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Maybe 45* promised and crossed his heart (with crossed fingers). That would be OK right, Rudy?
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Yeah my anecdotal story is just that. No idea if it has any similarities to Trump and his grifting in the white house. I also find it baffling and interesting what type of psychology must be going going on. Some of them get absolutely debased and they just come back for more. And like you said, he has had this reputation of screwing over people for decades. He probably tells some it’s true but they are too smart for his tricks so he will bring them in on it. Others respond to negging and others respond to abusive boyfriend techniques. Once he has everyone agreeing with his every word then peer pressure kicks in for others stuck in his orbit. I don’t think anything he does is genius, he just tries every abuser trick on a person until something works. Toss in his supposed wealth and add the authority of being the president. All things for him to weaponize.
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It wouldn’t surprise me if Ghouliani was working pro-bono for a long time. When Trump was on the rise, it probably seemed like the best advertising in the world. The opportunities for sleezy connections and graft were irresistible, I bet.
It also wouldn’t surprise me when Ghouliani saw Trump lose the election and future prospects, he started sending $20k a day bills plus expenses, raiding the sinking ship for every dollar aboard. I imagine the entire Trump political operation is like the Donner Party, at this point.
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I really wish I could believe that but Trump’s way of operating isn’t new. He hasn’t suddenly started stiffing people and “renegotiating” deals. And yet still plenty of people continued to do business with him.
There’s always someone who thinks they will be different, they will be able to handle Trump and extract money from him.
Even though evidence seems to indicate that most businesses are less able to get Trump to pay up than your average pornstar.
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I wanted to answer that his brand has especially suffered internationally where the percentage of diehards is in the low single figures and most people absolutely loathe him. So I looked up his properties outside the US and realised that except for his golf courses in Scotland, Ireland and Dubai he doesn’t really have any international projects anymore but a very long list of failed ones. I wonder what it says about the business strategy of the Trump org that it can’t succeed outside the US.
Here’s a typical example from Germany (I hadn’t known he had tried it here as well):
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In 2000 Trump partners with a plastic surgery clinic (because of course) to jointly build Europe’s biggest skyscraper on Alexanderplatz in Berlin (at the time the hottest real estate in all of Germany, maybe all of Europe)
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plans are drawn up when they realise that Berlin prohibits buildings higher than 150m
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they finally settle on building Southern Germany’s highest building in the periphery of Stuttgart instead, a third tier city (sorry, Stuttgarters)
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After an architect designs the building the city decides that they don’t see it as financially viable and refuse a building permit
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the company is dissolved 5 years after it was founded
This is where it gets good:
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The company tries to sue the city of Stuttgart for refusing the permit. The case gets dismissed.
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The plastic surgery company sues their joint venture partner, the Trump organisation, because they put up both their share of the capital and Trump’s share but they were never repaid for it
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the German state attorney begins to investigates the joint venture for accounting fraud
I have no idea how this organisation has been able to stay afloat for so long and how they managed to find new marks every time.
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But everybody knows that mulch is mission critical in legal proceedings.
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Stuttgart doesn’t need Trump, Stuttgart has Stuttgart21.
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Good prompt for a joke. What’s the difference between Trump’s lawyer and Stormy Daniels?
Well, one of them is a filthy, soulless person degrading our popular culture who was f—-ked by the president, and the other is a porn star.
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To be honest if they have the van they just hoover up the lot.
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But it’s still been some time since any COMPETENT lawyers have been willing to represent him.
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That’s why I locked my bike to trees, bike stands, iron fence railings etc, and not just to itself, which could be hauled off.
Back to Rudy. When will he come to trial? Who’ll pay his legal fees?
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