During a Wednesday speech in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Hillary Clinton tore apart Donald Trump’s business record in the city, warning that he could bankrupt the United States just as he has bankrupted his casinos.
Clinton noted that Trump boasts about his business record and argues that his business prowess will help him run the country, but that two of his casinos have closed and another is under new ownership.
“What he did for his businesses and his workers is nothing to brag about. In fact, it’s shameful,” Clinton said. “And every single voter in America needs to know about it, so we don’t let him do to our country what he did to his businesses.”
Clinton detailed Trump’s business dealings in Atlantic City. While building casinos in the city, Trump acquired a lot of debt and filed for bankruptcy several times, but he still made money off of the ventures, as the New York Times has reported.
“He calls himself the King of Debt, and he earned that title right here in AC. His bad decisions hurt the whole city,” Clinton said on Wednesday.
She noted that Trump himself has referred to Atlantic City as a “very good cash cow.”
“It’s not about what he can build, it’s about how much he can take,” Clinton said.
She warned that a Trump presidency would be detrimental to the U.S. economy.
“What he did here in Atlantic City is exactly what he will do if he wins in November,” Clinton said, adding that Trump would cut taxes for the rich, add to the national debt, and possibly default on the national debt. “It is the same scam over and over again.”
She said that Trump “is temperamentally unfit to be president of the United States.”
Shortly after Clinton’s speech ended, the Trump campaign released a statement defending his business record in Atlantic City.
“I have built a tremendously successful business, which has created tens of thousands of jobs,” Trump said in a statement. “Out of the hundreds of businesses I have owned over the decades, and hundreds of deals and transactions, I have used the chapter laws of our country in four instances, much as many of our country’s elite business people do (but nobody cares about).”
He argued that filing for bankruptcy is common practice.
“Nobody understands the economy like I do and no one, especially not Crooked Hillary Clinton, will do more for the economy than I will,” he said. “I created thousands of jobs and made a lot of money in Atlantic City, which was what, as a businessman, I am supposed to do for my company and my family– and as President I will make America rich again, and Make America Great Again.”
