Trump boasts ‘I’m a smart guy’ after report says he had $270m of debt written off
‘The politicians ran Chicago into the ground, ’ president claims
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Your support makes all the difference.President Donald Trump has suggested he is a "smart guy rather than a bad guy" in response to a report alleging that he had some $287 million dollars worth of debt written off after refusing to pay up on a flailing Chicago real-estate development.
"As a developer long ago, and continuing to this day, the politicians ran Chicago into the ground," Mr Trump, 74, tweeted early on Wednesday morning as attempted to shift the blame for the failed venture onto locally elected officials.
"I was able to make an appropriately great deal with the numerous lenders on a large and very beautiful tower. Doesn’t that make me a smart guy rather than a bad guy?" the president added.
Fresh off the back off a three-city campaigning blitz, the president was firing back at a story published in the New York Times on Tuesday, which suggested he defaulted on loans used to finance the construction of the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago back in 2008.
According to the Times report, Mr Trump visited the Windy City in September of 2008 to celebrate the near-completion of the skyscraper, built on 401 N. Wabash Ave at a time when the US economy had been decimated by the financial crash.
Due to the crisis, construction at the site waned as banks began to tighten their belts and recall previously outstanding loans as they desperately attempted to recover cash.
Among those loanees was the future 45th president of the United States, who it was revealed last month had paid just $750 in federal income in the first two years of his presidency in 2016 and 2017.
Trump, despite claiming to be a business titan, was not immune to the crash and found himself saddled with debt. But when the creditors came calling, he went walking. According to the Times, the president owed $287 million - most of which was related to his Chicago hotel.
Tax records unearthed by the Post reportedly show that some of Mr Trump's lenders gave him extra time to repay the loans and sliced off huge chunks of his total bill.
One bank even agreed to lend Trump a further $99 million after he filed a lawsuit against it, claiming that he was being preyed upon and hounded too aggressively for the money.
The debts form part of a wider deep-dive investigation into the Trump Organisation by New York state prosecutors. The Times reported Mr Trump paid no federal income tax on the money.
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