HOW REALITY-TV FAME HANDED TRUMP A $427 MILLION LIFELINE
Source: NY Times
Tax records show that “The Apprentice” rescued Donald J. Trump, bringing him new sources of cash and a myth that would propel him to the White House.
Sept. 28, 2020
From the back seat of a stretch limousine heading to meet the first contestants for his new TV show “The Apprentice,” Donald J. Trump bragged that he was a billionaire who had overcome financial hardship.
“I used my brain, I used my negotiating skills and I worked it all out,” he told viewers. “Now, my company is bigger than it ever was and stronger than it ever was.”
It was all a hoax.
Months after that inaugural episode in January 2004, Mr. Trump filed his individual tax return reporting $89.9 million in net losses from his core businesses for the prior year. The red ink spilled from everywhere, even as American television audiences saw him as a savvy business mogul with the Midas touch.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/28/us/donald-trump-taxes-apprentice.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage
This is a follow up of the NY Times blockbuster report from over the weekend.
Look for continuing articles about trump's tax fraud issues!
= new reply since forum marked as read
from the housing discrimination mess and settlement, through to and including the 3 Atlantic City casino fiascos. The bigger issue is why the broadcast media chose to focus on "Her emails®" (while even today, ignoring Ivanka's "emails" ), although I suppose they figured the smutty "Access Hollywood" stuff should have been enough. 
When PA legalized gambling and 2 facility licenses were assigned to Philadelphia by the PA Gaming Control Commission, guess who submitted a bid?
The Powerpoint presentation (as a PDF file)
https://www.phillymag.com/news/2016/02/18/donald-trump-philly-casino-boyz-ii-men/
When he lost the bid, his remarks were -
Updated Mar 23, 2019; Posted Sep 18, 2008
By The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Real Estate Mogul Donald Trump is criticizing Pennsylvania's Gov. Ed Rendell for casino licensing ways.
COLTS NECK, N.J. -- Donald Trump says Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell is doing a lousy job and letting his pals reap the rewards of Pennsylvania's emerging casino business. "Pennsylvania is a little too political of a state for me," Trump said Wednesday at a news conference at his newly purchased $28 million golf course in New Jersey horse country. "It sounds like you have to be a friend of the governor to get a casino."
In 2006, Trump lost out on the chance to build a casino on an old industrial site in Philadelphia's withering Nicetown section. State gambling regulators who selected the sites questioned whether visitors would show up and whether other businesses would invest in an economically depressed area with decaying infrastructure. Instead, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board awarded licenses to two companies that planned to build slots parlors on the Delaware River waterfront.
One of the projects, the Foxwoods casino, ran into such stiff community opposition in South Philadelphia that Rendell and Mayor Michael Nutter brokered a deal to move it downtown. The proposed site change, announced last week and still in need of regulatory approval, has left Trump fuming, the Philadelphia Daily News reported today.
"What the governor did is outrageous," Trump said. "He let a group of his political friends go to another site." He added, without elaboration: "I think he's doing a lousy job as governor." Trump himself could be considered a political friend of the Democratic governor. He gave Rendell campaign contributions totaling $32,000 between 2001 and 2003.
https://www.pennlive.com/midstate/2008/09/a_fuming_trump_criticizes_rend.html
Eventually one license was awarded to what was then called "Sugar House" (formerly the Jack Frost sugar refinery along the Delaware River in the Northern Liberties section of the city) and just renamed to "Rivers Casino", and the other one mentioned in the above article - Foxwoods - got torpedoed. So finally, over a decade after that, the 2nd casino license was awarded to a firm that planned to open just this year down in the stadium area in South Philly... except now -COVID- so that got delayed again.
got $400+ from his Big Daddy Drumpf and another $400+ from his TeeeVeee show and blew it all. Genius?
Remember the Hollywood writer's/actor's strike? You know, the one where producers had to scramble for a replacement for the teevee fare at the time, and in their infinite wisdom (actually it was more like desperation), came up with "REALITY TV"?
I am sure the strikers had just cause to strike. Strikers usually do. There is usually some gross injustice that ends up evoking that ultimate attack. It just goes to show that once a step is taken, what comes next is anybody's guess. It could be good, and it could be bad. The original intentions of the responsive step becomes irrelevant.
REALITY TV was certainly a cheap, and easy solution. Networks made bazillions, while simultaneously foisting crap (even worse than the usual crap) on the teevee viewing public.
Of course there was nothing REAL about it. It was totally scripted, in the sense that the usually unknown actors were told to be confrontational, combative, insulting, physically abusive (within limits, of course). After all, THAT is what got the attention of the American public. The result? We, the viewing public, were subjected to endless shows that tried to outdo the others in offensive behavior. And we were blessed 
with the likes of the Kardashians, and Trump.
The turd was never passed off as an actor, he was a "celebrity". It didn't matter that he was fake, his background story, his wealth, and CERTAINLY his hair... NBC was the root source of this gross amateur posing as a successful businessman.
We now know that it was all just that. FAKE.
And I am sure the writers and actors involved in a strike for fair and just rewards, had no idea what they were setting in motion.
It shows that whenever we make decisions, we have no idea what will come as a result of that decision. It wasn't the writers and actors fault. NO ONE in positions to do anything about it, DID anything about it. They were too busy cashing in.
Now THAT is certainly appropriate, how very TRUMPIAN.
I've hated "reality TV" shows all these years, and it all goes back to the writers' strike.
Besides Chump becoming famous in "The Apprentice" you know who else catapulted to fame *for no reason*? The Kardashians.
