Althouse: "Donald Trump promised Wednesday to 'remove' himself from his businesses..."

November 30, 2016

"Donald Trump promised Wednesday to 'remove' himself from his businesses..."

"... and said he will announce details in two weeks about how he'll avoid conflicts of interest when he is president."

34 comments:

David Begley said...: Trump just keeps on hitting homers. I'm not tired of winning yet.; 11/30/16, 8:14 AM
MAJMike said...: Heh. Announced via Twitter. No wonder the CriminalLiberalNewsMedia hates him.; 11/30/16, 8:18 AM
Virgil Hilts said...: Clever move. Makes it hard for pundits to keep hammering on issue for next 2 weeks since they don't know his proposal; they'll have to spend more time talking about Romney's appointment.; 11/30/16, 8:21 AM
Scott M said...: "visually important" just became a buzz phrase.; 11/30/16, 8:22 AM
Levi Starks said...: You may disagree, but it seems to me that Trumps tweets in effect are not so different from FDR's fireside chats.
Radio is antiquated, people don't have time for group therapy "chats". Sure, it would be nice if everyone agreed with Trump, but his appeal and loyalty is to the citizenship elected him. Though I wasn't alive, something tells me FDR had his detractors. But it probably wasn't the NYT.; 11/30/16, 8:24 AM
traditionalguy said...: But MSNBC and CNN spent this AM on the Great Frog Legs scandal. Those billionaires had Frog Legs appetizer on the menue at a Trump Hotel Restaurant to snear down their noses at us deplorables, except for Mitt, who apparently mostly ate crow.; 11/30/16, 8:27 AM
Brando said...: I don't really see how he can do this without actually selling off his assets. Even if they're in a "blind trust" run by someone else, how can he not know what he owns, who owes money to him, who he owes money to? That can all change gradually but at least at first it'll be pretty obvious what his interests are.

Either he's going to have to do a liquidation, or we're just going to have to accept that we have a president with a massive conflict of interest.; 11/30/16, 8:31 AM
traditionalguy said...: Having overcome horrible loss himself, FDR soon had the hearts of his abandoned voters at a deep emotional level. And using that, he became their awesome Commander-in-Chief. At his command, Ford switched over from cars to the manufacture of 100,000 airplanes flown by FDR's voters who became trained pilots in a brilliant Training System. And that is what won the war.; 11/30/16, 8:35 AM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Lotta people said he's not serious, he doesn't really want to win, if he does win he's not really a conservative. Now I smile at the good news every day. I find this series of tweets interesting. I wonder if this will work as well as before?

Because I have a theory. Especially once the millions of illegal votes and flag burning tweets took off. Every radio and television show (and Josh Earnest of course) was discussing the law, the supreme court view of flag burning, etc. Those that were, that is, not obsessing on Kellyanne's tweets about Romney. Those two non-subjects of non-news DOMINATED the weekend and beyond, to the point of saturation, sparking an epiphany. Trump can literally tweet ANYTHING and completely play the media like puppets. The ones who spent a year ripping him are the worst offenders now. His tweets command them to "dance little progressive monkeys" and they do it!

Note to media: Discussion of these topics HELPS Trump and makes you and your masters in the DNC look stupid. Over 90% of America HATES flag burners. You just spent FIVE DAYS defending the practice while mouthing "of course we don't condone..." but you DO condone it. Your people are in the streets right NOW burning flags. And citizens like me HATE to think of our votes being invalidated by a non-citizens ballot. But all the MSM and lib talking heads say that doesn't happen. Well 39 million Californians KNOW it happens 'cause we see the fraud in front of our faces.

As Instapundit would say, "Troll level: Grand Master." Trump's got the MSM-DNC complex dancing like monkeys!; 11/30/16, 8:37 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: It is visually important because the hack Brian Ross(D) press are all over Trump for having the audacity to run businesses. To the left - profit is bad. Immoral. Just you never mind that leftists own stock, too.
The pro-democrat Clintonopolis Chuck Todd(D) hack press were not at all alarmed over Clinton, Inc. and that obvious corruption.; 11/30/16, 8:39 AM
JHapp said...: I think it's pretty clear Romney is getting this job.; 11/30/16, 8:42 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Private server Clinton Inc. fake family charity run as a slush fund? COOL!

Trump owns hotels and runs international businesses with thousands of employees - bad bad bad conflict of interest bad bad horrible bad.; 11/30/16, 8:42 AM
Matt Sablan said...: ""visually important" just became a buzz phrase."

-- Just a long way to say "optics."; 11/30/16, 8:50 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: The devil is in the details. A blind trust would not do much good. Nor would turning over his assets to his children.

Complete liquidation would certainly work, but would be a huge thing, and would, in an of itself destroy a large amount of brand-name value.

I wonder if they could create some form of trump hedge fund, where, for every dollar increase in the value of the Trump assets above some index ( S&P 500? ) the hedge fund loses a dollar. Trump's assets go into a blind trust, with enough sold off to purchase offsetting shares of the hedge fund. Trump retains ownership, but cannot profit from actions that would favor his assets.; 11/30/16, 9:03 AM
Hagar said...: Just keep the deals aboveboard and let the leftists scream.; 11/30/16, 9:10 AM
Dude1394 said...: wow..he just continues to do presidential things. I am sure the Hillary Clinton for President National Review is ecstatic.; 11/30/16, 9:12 AM
n.n said...: Smart. That addresses the a prior conflicts. Now all that remains are progressive conflicts that politicians seem to attract.; 11/30/16, 9:47 AM
Brando said...: "The devil is in the details. A blind trust would not do much good. Nor would turning over his assets to his children."

Yeah, I'm not seeing a way out of this short of total liquidation (and can't imagine he'd ever do that) or Congress just deciding "meh". My money's on "meh".; 11/30/16, 9:49 AM
Jaq said...: Hillary, of course, just threw records of her "conflicts of interest" into burn bags. There is not truth to the rumor that she called the burn bags "my pretties" though.; 11/30/16, 10:02 AM
Matt Sablan said...: I'll wait until the actual announcement to weigh in, as opposed to the announcement of the announcing.; 11/30/16, 10:08 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Matthew Sablan said...

I'll wait until the actual announcement to weigh in, as opposed to the announcement of the announcing.

I'll wait until you actually weigh in, as opposed to your announcement that you will weigh in, before I reply.; 11/30/16, 10:25 AM
eric said...: This is really smart and a solid move by Trump.

However, he is going to learn quickly that he will get zero credit for this. They'll just say, hey, look, his name is Trump. His business is called Trump. Everyone in the world knows that trump. Benefits from trump brand. Therefore, its still a conflict of interest.

But short of liquidation, there isn't anything else he can do. And he isn't going to liquidate.; 11/30/16, 10:25 AM
MountainMan said...: Stephen Bainbridge at UCLA provided a pretty good summary of how a "wall of separation" could be created that Trump might be able to use. You can read about it here:

http://www.professorbainbridge.com/professorbainbridgecom/2016/11/the-first-wall-trump-needs-to-build-is-an-ethics-wall-and-there-are-precedents.html

It's possible that attorneys are now drawing up the documents to implement something like this.; 11/30/16, 10:39 AM
Rocketeer said...: But MSNBC and CNN spent this AM on the Great Frog Legs scandal. Those billionaires had Frog Legs appetizer on the menue at a Trump Hotel Restaurant to snear [sic] down their noses

That cracks me up. Where I come from, frog legs are Poor People Food (TM). I should know, I ate enough as a kid...; 11/30/16, 11:11 AM
JAORE said...: "Note to media: Discussion of these topics HELPS Trump and makes you and your masters in the DNC look stupid. Over 90% of America HATES flag burners. You just spent FIVE DAYS defending the practice while mouthing "of course we don't condone..." but you DO condone it. Your people are in the streets right NOW burning flags."

Not to mention the opportunity to tell the world that Hillary (patron saint of glass ceilings) sponsored a bill to make flag burning illegal. [tee-hee]

Reason 4,563 that people are so sick of media and the left's insanity that we have President-elect Trump.; 11/30/16, 11:32 AM
mikee said...: My local Ausin, Texas, Chinese buffet, where I am a patron far more often than I should be, offers fried frog legs quite often. It is an All You Can Eat buffet, patronized by people who make my 44" waistline look positively svelte. The frog legs are pretty good.

I prefer the fried squid they do, but then, the only place I've had better was in Malibu. My buffet is pretty good. Now I'm hungry.; 11/30/16, 11:36 AM
MadisonMan said...: Chuckling at the exchange between Matthew Sablan and Ignorance is Bliss.; 11/30/16, 11:43 AM
CatherineM said...: Get credit? Doubtful he will be selling off his assets. Having his children control is not a "blind trust."

If you work for a financial firm, what stocks you OR YOUR IMMEDIATE FAMILY buy or sell is dictated by business the firm is doing. The firm is doing business with GE? Your wife and other household members need to sell their GE stock.

Then there is private and public financial business and if you work for one side or the other, you can't converse/share information. At all the firms I have worked, the public and private were on other firms/elevator banks, but typically other buildings.

If his kids are given his business, they should not be sitting in on any meetings the President has. Period.

We'll see what this shakes out to be, but his tweet is only a "home run" if you don't understand what a conflict of interest his business is for the country (Public) when decisions are made based how they benefit him and his children financially (Private). You didn't like Clinton's seeming pay for play with the Clinton Foundation or fundraising using the Lincoln bedroom? Don't be cool with Trump essentially doing the same.; 11/30/16, 12:13 PM
Yancey Ward said...: I am going to guess that he turns the business over to his children, and they won't be part of his administration going forward. Realistically, it is all he can actually do- liquidating the business is silly since so much of the value is the brand itself.; 11/30/16, 1:35 PM
exhelodrvr1 said...: "complex dancing like monkeys"

Isn't that a dog whistle?; 11/30/16, 1:42 PM
JAORE said...: I recall when the left went berserk demanding Cheney sell off his interest in Halliburton.

Cheney did so.

Then, when Halliburton shares tanked, the left re-entered high speed wobble saying that Cheney had somehow manipulated the situation.

Good times.; 11/30/16, 4:08 PM
David said...: Devil in details.; 11/30/16, 5:14 PM
ken in tx said...: I don't remember LBJ selling off any of his assets, like radio and tv stations KLBJ, his ranch and other stuff around here. He already had it in his wife's name anyway, I think. Ironically, KLBJ-FM carries Rush Limbaugh today.; 11/30/16, 7:06 PM
Saint Croix said...: I was startled to learn the other day that after JFK appointed his brother Attorney General, the next Democrat administration made this move illegal.

The word that leaps to my mind? Petty. LBJ did not like Bobby Kennedy and did this to embarrass him and his brother's family.

I don't even like this word, "nepotism." One of those -ism words, like communism or racism. Let's stick an -ism on the end of it to describe how evil the Kennedy brothers were! I'm a Republican and I say--bite me. If an outsider with trust issues wants to have people he can really, really trust close at hand in his inner circle, he damn well ought to have those people in his inner circle. On a daily basis!

I think it would be classy (and wise) for Congress to offer an exemption to President Trump and allow him to bring his daughter and/or his son-in-law into his administration. He is a better man with their counsel and I can't imagine what a crappy Republican convention it would have been if the law had forbidden family from appearing on the stage(!)

So yay Kennedy brothers, boo LBJ, and let's cut the big red-faced bastard some slack and let him bring some family into his administration. It's not like he's trying to put some hungry potato-eaters on the public tit! And Bobby Kennedy was an excellent AG, and for all we know if he hadn't been there there might have been a misstep.; 12/1/16, 2:16 AM