Experts: Trump Charity ‘Rotten All Over The Core,’ Clinton Leads In New Tracking Poll, And A Rescue In Aleppo

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October 4th, 2016

Top Stories


Either Trump Was Too Cheap To Run A Proper Foundation Or He Didn’t Care To

The Gist: As revelations about the Trump Foundation pile up, what has emerged is a picture of a sloppily run, bare-bones operation.

Clinton Leads Trump By 6 Points In Post-Debate National Tracking Poll

The Gist: Another post-debate national tracking poll has Clinton holding a comfortable lead in the final weeks before Election Day.

Megyn Kelly To Trump Advisor: How Can You Answer For Workers He ‘Screwed’?

The Gist: Megyn Kelly pressed advisor Boris Epshteyn to answer for workers who were “hung out to dry” by Donald Trump in 1995.

From The Reporter’s Notebook


TPM’s Tierney Sneed reported on the big picture surrounding the concerns raised about the Trump Foundation, including potential legal violations that charity law professors said should have been avoidable under the guidance of lawyers with non-profit expertise. One such lawyer — Marcus Owens, an attorney at Loeb and Loeb in Washington who represents nonprofit organizations — pointed out the irony that the Trump Foundation is registered in New York. “It’s interesting that all this is happening with a New York organization, because if you had to pick the one state where there is real charitable oversight, New York is right up there,” Owens said.

Agree or Disagree?


Josh Marshall: “We’ve known for years that the collapse of Trump’s debt-ridden casino empire in Atlantic City almost destroyed him more than two decades ago. He was able to wriggle through by a number of angles and connivances. But one of the biggest was that he was able to convince his lenders that they’d be even worse off if he was cleaned out and removed from the picture entirely. Convincing them that he was in essence too big or too important to fail, they took major ‘haircuts’ (losses) that allowed him to survive. He got others to absorb the impact of the losses, repackaged other parts and put them through bankruptcy, etc. The key question is how much of the Atlantic City losses did Trump absorb in real terms? How much of those losses were forgiven or written off formally? And perhaps most importantly, how much of those losses were squirreled away or ‘parked’ in places which effectively put them in a sort of limbo or suspended animation — neither truly absorbed nor forgiven?”

Say What?!


“Don’t you think a man who has this kind of economic genius is a lot better for the United States than a woman?”

– Rudy Giuliani skipped right on past casual sexism while touting Trump’s business smarts.

BUZZING: Today in the Hive


From a TPM Prime member: “Trump supporters, particularly Giuliani, harp on Trump’s fiduciary responsibility. The issues in the NYT article involve Trump’s personal returns. There is no issue of fiduciary responsibility here to other investors, employees, etc. It’s a pure smoke screen of official sounding word salad that the interviewers should have caught.”

Related: Mark Cuban says voters shouldn’t assume that Trump’s 1995 business losses were simply the result of failed casinos.

Have something to add? Become a Prime member and join the discussion here.

What We’re Reading


Trump backer: “Finally. Someone who thinks like me.” (The State)

Videos capture the minute-by-minute rescue response to an airstrike that destroyed a building in eastern Aleppo. (The New York Times)


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