John Avlon on Trump Hosting G-7 at Doral: When He Says It’s Not About the Money, It Is

EXCERPT:

AVLON: "Hey, guys. Look, there’s an old Hollywood adage. When they say it’s not about the money, it’s about the money. So keep that in mind when you hear President Trump say this."
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TRUMP: "It will cost me anywhere from 3 to $5 billion to be president, and the only thing I care about is this country. I don’t want to make money. I don’t care about making money. If I wanted to make money, I wouldn’t worry about 3 billion to 5 billion."
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AVLON: "That’s mighty big of you, Mr. President. But so are those numbers. Implausibly big, in fact. But these are the kind of stats Trump loves. They’re huge, in the absence of tax returns virtually impossible to confirm. But according to 'Forbes', which tracks these kind of things, the President couldn’t lose $5 billion because he was never worth that much. Forbes does calculate that the President's net worth has decreased around a billion dollars over the last few years, but they attribute a lot of that drop to deeper reporting — in other words, journalists doing their jobs. All of this is coming up again because President Trump sounded very much like a pitch man for his properties at the G7, explaining why he apparently wants to host next year’s event at his very own golf resort."