Donald Trump tweeted this morning that it is “visually important, as President, to in no way have a conflict of interest with my various businesses.” As a result “legal documents are being crafted which take me completely out of business operations.”
Despite this, the New York Times says that “skeptics” aren’t satisfied. There’s a good reason for this. Two good reasons, actually. First, we live in a new era. As a matter of fact, not of cynicism or partisan griping, Trump tweets should be treated as lies until proven otherwise. That’s just the way it is. Second, removing himself from business operations doesn’t accomplish a thing. Trump still has massive conflicts of interest. The only way to resolve this is to sell the Trump Organization, which he will never do. In the meantime, every two-bit autocrat in the world knows that the quickest way to Trump’s heart is to do something nice for Trump’s business: approve his permits, hook up his kids with connected financiers, move government offices into his buildings, whatever. It’s just a way of showing respect, you know?
I suppose there are worse things than having the United States run along the lines of a Mafia family. Nuclear war. An economic crash. Miami settling into the sea. Unfortunately, the odds are at least nontrivial that we’re going to get all of those things too.
