Paying the cost to be the boss?

To the Editor:

In a recent cabinet meeting, President Trump pontificated about how his critics were using “the phony emoluments” clause as a cudgel to hammer him. In fact the emoluments clause just happens to be embedded in the United States Constitution. By extension, the President is also questioning the legitimacy and the wisdom of our republic’s founding governing charter. At the same time that he is debasing the Constitution, he is spreading the message that being the President has “cost” him two to five billion dollars in lost income over the past three years. This is simply unbelievable, and some would call it just hyperbole. Actually it is just one more falsehood put out to serve Trump’s self-interest. 

To see just how ridiculous his claim of lost income is, it is estimated that the Trump Organization’s annual gross revenue (not profit) is in the range of 400 to 500 million dollars. This would project out to maybe one to one and a half billion dollars over three years, a far cry from the two to five billion he claims. What’s more, the Trump Organization has continued to make money over this whole time period, not lose it.

Though this may seem like a small and unimportant falsehood among the 13,000+ lies he has purportedly told over the past three years, it is not. It is telling, as it exemplifies how being President, the most powerful and honored job in our country, and arguably the world, is not about the desire to serve the people, but rather Trump’s desire to serve himself. Perhaps it would be best for Mr. Trump and the country, if the American people returned him to the private sector where he can do what he likes best: make money.

Ken Derow
Swarthmore