So many people are getting worked up into tizzies about the possibility of Donald Trump running for president. But there are also an equal amount calling him Trump the Chump.
Aside from the fact that he is pressing all the issues that get people worked up over, like Obama’s birth certificate, what is really behind Trump? After all, he was for Obama before he was against him. A typical Washington flip-flopper!
Stephanopoulos: I’ll get to my next question. Today, the head of the Club for Growth a major group inside the Republican Party has said you’re just another liberal. Focusing–
Trump: A liberal?
Stephanopoulos: Liberal.
Trump: Me? A liberal? What is the Club for Growth and who are they supporting? Because I understood– I had heard about this just a little while ago. I had heard that they have a favored candidate, whoever that may be.
Stephanopoulos: Who do you think that is?
Trump: I don’t know. I have no idea. But when somebody calls me a liberal, that is something I don’t think I’ve ever been called before.
Stephanopoulos: But in your book, The America We Deserve, you wrote, “I’m a conservative on most issues, but a liberal on this one.” You were talking about health care.
Trump: I want people to be taken care of. But not with Obamacare. Obamacare is a total disaster. Also, we’re in a much different time. We used to think, 12-14 years ago, we used to think we had a wealthy nation, we could take care of people. The fact is, we’re in a much different time now. The world has changed a lot.
Stephanopoulos: So, you no longer support universal health care?
Trump: I support health care for people. I want people well taken care of. But I also want health care that we can afford as a country. I have people and friends closing down their businesses because of Obamacare. I mean, they’re literally closing down their businesses. They cannot afford to stay in business. And that can’t happen. Because that’s more jobs, more unemployment, and more people going over to China.
Stephanopoulos: In– in your book, at that time, you said, you– we needed to find an equivalent of the single payer plan that is affordable, well-administered, and provides freedom of choice. Still for single payer?
(OVERTALK)
Trump: How many years ago was that, George? Tell me.
Stephanopoulos: It was in 2000.
Trump: Okay. It’s a long time ago. It’s 11 or 12 years ago. And frankly, a lot of people agreed with it. A lot of conservative Republicans agreed with it, at that time. We have a different country today. We can’t afford things that we could have afforded or that we thought we could afford many years ago.
Stephanopoulos: But what is your plan now?
Trump: My plan now is to number one get rid of Obamacare.
But what about his money?
But the truth is, no one is sure what Trump is worth. Forbes magazine puts his current net worth at somewhere around $2.7 billion; a 2005 report from Deutsche Bank put the number at $788 million.
Nor does there seem to be much consistency to his assertion that he’s “very conservative” politically. In his pseudo-run for the presidency in 2000, he endorsed universal health care and a 14.25% one-time tax on estates over $10 million to bolster Social Security and Medicare — two positions that any progressive liberal would support.
But if Obama would release a ‘true’ birth certificate, we would know just what Donald is worth.
USAToday article:
Donald Trump says he’ll disclose his finances if he runs for president, but won’t release his income tax returns unless President Obama releases his birth certificate.
Trump made his comments in a wide-ranging interview with ABC’s Good Morning America. He has vowed to say by June whether he’ll seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.
The real estate executive told host George Stephanopoulos that he’s “done a great job” with his company and vowed to “do a full disclosure of finances.”
But when asked if he’d release his tax returns — as Obama did yesterday and as presidential candidates have done in the past — Trump balked and brought up the issue of Obama’s birth certificate.”We’ll look at that,” Trump said. “… I’d love to give my tax returns. I may tie my tax returns into Obama’s birth certificate.”
And if you are still unsure about whether the Donald is Trump the Chump or the savior to the GOP, know this: