CommentsGELFAND’S WORLD--Donald Trump may well be dead broke. So says Paul Campos, a respected law professor and blogger.
The Campos column provides a good bit of believable evidence, mainly concentrating on the difficulties that Trump's colleagues had in paying off Trump's mistresses.
Campos states bluntly, "I don't think Trump has any money at all." His thesis is that Trump went broke in the early 1990s and has been "a kept man" ever since, "living month to month on whatever his handlers deign to give him back from what he turns over to them, which is everything."
Campos is not the first to argue that Trump must be in financial trouble and therefore beholden to his Russian backer(s). But this column takes the argument to its logical conclusion.
The idea that Trump is dead broke and has been that way for a quarter of a century would explain a lot about Trump's behavior. For example, it came out during the campaign that Trump had a propensity to stiff his contractors. This could be attributed to some personality quirk, but the simpler explanation is that Trump didn't have the money so he bluffed and blustered.
As a unifying theory that explains the Trump persona, the Campos piece is worth a read.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
-cw
