Chris Cillizza
CNN
Monday, September 28, 2020
Donald Trump needed a new act.
By 2015, more than a decade removed from the smashing success of “The Apprentice,” Trump’s brand — always his most marketable and valuable commodity — was foundering, his golf courses were losing loads of money and he had nine-figure loans coming due. (We know all of that thanks to blockbuster reporting from The New York Times that reveals Trump paid $750 in taxes in 2016 — and no taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years.)
So he ran for president. Which, in retrospect, makes all the sense in the world.
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But his situation was different in 2015. He was no longer riding high financially or otherwise. He was seen less as a business titan and A-list celebrity — and much more as a a cultural curiosity, a sort of has-been throwback to the 1980s. Flirting with a run for president wasn’t enough; he needed to go further this time as a way to restart a flagging brand.
Everything from the early days of Trump’s presidential candidacy suggest that this was much more about boosting a brand than any serious campaign to actually wind up as the Republican presidential nominee.
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Throughout his 2016 campaign and his time in the White House, I kept coming back to a quote Trump gave about himself (and his life philosophy) to Playboy magazine back in 1990: “The show is Trump, and it is sold-out performances everywhere.”
Story Continues
Bugs Marlowe
Article URL : https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/28/politics/donald-trump-tax-returns-new-york-times/index.html