Thursday, August 18, 2011
Donald Trump Seems To Have Moved On After Fleetingly Fervent On Italy Framing Knox
Posted by Peter Quennell
Twenty months ago Donald Trump was sounding very very very anti-Italy.
His strident beef with Italy (his former wife Ivana Trump who he ditched for a showgirl lives there) seemed the real reason for his brief fling with the pro-Knox bandwagon, rather than any deep knowledge of the case.
Recently he made a contribution of a golf-related freebie to the Knox campaign. Otherwise he seems to have retreated to the sideline.
Normally he is seen as aimiable enough, if something of a lightweight having fun. His very successful father bankrolled him into property development. His properties and casino businesses fell on hard times several times. He lost control of all his casinos in Atlantic City and a very large development on Manhattan’s Upper West Side - even though all still bear his name.
He briefly thought of running for president as a Republican in 2012, but it seems the financial disclosures and fiery competition would have been altogether too much. Hollywood notables, who overall tend to be liberal, revealed for the occasion how much they hate him.
He still continues to snipe at President Obama from the sidelines and the latest is that he may run as a Ross Perot style independent for president in 2012.
To his credit, he has just done one thing that the country really needs.
He has joined billionaire Warren Buffet in saying that billionaires need to pay more taxes. Watch Harvard professor Robert Reich in the video below for the reasoning behind this. Robert Reich and Donald Trump may not start a billionaire’s stampede, but Trump should win some popular respect.
He may win more votes this way than by bashing Italy for murky reasons that most simply dont understand.
Comments
8/18/11
I like Donald Trump. In throwing his momentary support behind Amanda’s family, I believe he just got sucked into a sob story about Mandy from blind devotees. He didn’t have time to dig deeper. If he’d had time to study this case on his own, I believe he would have turned on a dime and reversed his opinion completely. He still might. Yes, I believe his emotions about ex-wife Ivana and her Italian move did color his outlook on this case. He probably regrets his support for Knox already.
I have his book, “The Art of the Deal”. He’s a savvy businessman and that’s where his talents need to stay. The campaign trail and the White House require a different skill set, I hope he won’t campaign. In his giant projects and real estate development he has done this country a tremendous service.
Way back in the 90s when “Cats” was playing on Broadway, I heard he took his children to see it. That touched me.
When my daughter and I stayed at The Plaza for one fabulous and rare Thanksgiving holiday in 2009, I saw his and Ivana’s handiwork up close, they did a makeover of The Plaza which he acquired at a huge cost. He’d always loved the building, it looks sorta like a French castle, but after the divorce from Ivana I think he sold it. The Wollmann ice skating rink in Central Park had the name TRUMP in bold letters on it as we walked by admiring the skaters. He rebuilt the rink after an effort of the City to do it had become stalled.
Another thing that touched me, I heard Trump never forgot the few bankers who helped him out when he desperately needed loans after he had gone bankrupt on some projects. He suddenly had poor credit and was in danger of permanently going under. He risked big, so did the bankers. Together they “primed the pump” instead of turning off the water supply, and he made a comeback that profited everyone. I’m glad they didn’t give up on him. I’m glad the wealthy men in this country buying up U.S.land have last names like Walton and Trump and not Sheik el-Mohammed, etc.
I was also partial to him when I heard he admired the Christian evangelist, Paula White, about seven years ago in her heydey. She had a rare gift for ministry and the spoken Word.
Trump has done so much good overall. I was quite sorry he called the Amanda Knox case wrong. I do chalk it up to bad advisors and Ivana pain.
I saw Trump’s pretty daughter Ivanka in the April 2011 issue of “Town and Country” wearing a humongus diamond ring, earrings, and bracelets as a jewelry model. She may have as good a career modeling as her mother.
I didn’t follow “The Apprentice” too much but it gave a lot of sharp young people open doors and exposure, not to mention The Donald having his own TV show. He made a guest appearance in the Hugh Grant, Sandra Bullock movie, “Two Weeks Notice”. He always makes me smile. He seems like a symbol of a man who had a good start in life, then struggled up the rocky road to success and got a second chance when all seemed lost. That’s the final victory where you’re much wiser than ever. On a very tiny scale, that may be like his Knox support, a mistake he won’t make again. A lot of us go belly-up after initial success followed by folly, then get back up. Humility is strength.
I’m a long way removed from men like Mr. Trump, and this comment is all I know about him, very little, but I do admire his business acumen and honesty.
Well put hopeful. I too have always thought Trump was interesting and mostly likeable. When I heard that he had made a statement for AK I hoped it was only short lived and possibly a bandwagon play at the time. It seems so. Celebrities who are so fond of the spotlight do many stupid things for it. This was one of them on his part. Donald just stay out of it. This is one you just don’t need.
absolutely can’t stand him, sorry..i have no respect for those that care only for adding to their billions while so many on our planet survive on bits of bread and water on a “good” day, while children never able to be children because their lives are spent working to feed themselves and their siblings, etc….
his support of these murderers was just another log thrown on the huge pyre of my severe dislike for him. ive assumed his jump on the FOA bandwagon was because of some business associates asking him to and his sheer arrogance, not from any supposed worry about so called “injustice for knox”...
the ONLY injustice in the knox case is that Meredith’s family has had no chance to move on while they continue to hear this sickening ill-informed shite day and night. ok, sorry, my 3 cents 😊
Are the Hollywoord Reporter reader comments still viewable? I dont see them when I try to click through. Trump being accused of being a racist may have shaken him enough to change course on both Obama and Knox. He did lose his cool. He might have asked to have those comments removed if they have been.
That’s funny, Pete. I just posted a comment, but the 270 comments don’t appear. Hmm.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/donald-trump-cancels-letterman-racism-184104
@ rach - Please don’t apologize. I agree with you 100%. I have had a handful of personal experiences with Trump and I can tell you that he is extremely distasteful.
Not only is he racist and xenophobic he is also extremely sexist.
He cheated on his first wife with his second wife. I saw him having a dalliance with Carla Bruni while his pregnant second wife was performing on Broadway. I’m sure these are not the only incidents of his infidelity.
He took a spoon full of whipped cream and licked it in front of me while talking to me. It was gross!
He helped to bankrupt my uncle by threatening the banks financing his project.
He is a total sleazeball.
@ former bad girl…he sounds just like i’ve imagined he would be in person ...disgusting. seems to me he feels that when he wants something it is his to take, property or people…his recent sickening behavior in expecting to acquire the natural lands of Scotland for his purposes come to mind. thanks for sharing your run-ins, yikes! sorry for your uncle :(
Aside from his unsavory traits, he seems to be pretty terrible at making money (I wonder why anyone still lends to him, in light of how successful most of his ventures were). His TV show was an unbearable display of his megalomania; also, parading his children as if they had any real achievements was distasteful. His daughter strikes me as haughty and incredibly unpleasant, let alone not very smart.
I just wish that photos of him, videos of him, articles about him wouldn’t be popping everywhere. I’m sick of the cheap publicity stunts, of the self-aggrandizing words, of his spoiled children and trashy wife, of just anything having to do with him.
I think I need to watch a kitten video after this :p
Just a little over 5 weeks ago, on Amanda Knox’s birthday, July 9th, there was a fundraiser at the Showbox Sodo in Seattle. Donald Trump donated a weekend of golf at one of his resorts for one of the auction items, if I’m not mistaken.
Oops, it was July 8th, that extended into the wee hours of July 9th…with a cake for her birthday. Sorry for the error… Tara
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