Lucky Loser
How Donald Trump Squandered His Father's Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success
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4.4 • 8 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
An Instant New York Times Bestseller • A Washington Post Notable Book • A Financial Times Best Business Book of the Year
“A first-rate financial thriller . . . Lucky Loser is one of those rare Trump books that deserve, even demand, to be read.” —Alexander Nazaryan, The New York Times
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning reporters behind the 2018 bombshell New York Times exposé of President Trump’s finances, an explosive investigation into the history of Donald Trump’s wealth, revealing how one of the country’s biggest business failures lied his way into the White House
Soon after announcing his first campaign for the U.S. presidency, Donald J. Trump told a national television audience that life “has not been easy for me. It has not been easy for me.” Building on a narrative he had been telling for decades, he spun a hardscrabble fable of how he parlayed a small loan from his father into a multibillion-dollar business and real estate empire. This feat, he argued, made him singularly qualified to lead the country. Except none of it was true. As his wealthy father’s chosen successor, Trump received the equivalent today of more than $500 million in family money. He collected a second windfall thanks to Mark Burnett, the revolutionary television producer who made Trump a star. In truth, Trump’s empire was underwritten, and at times saved, by the equivalent of more than $1 billion that came his way without any of the business expertise he claimed.
Drawing on more than twenty years’ worth of Trump’s confidential tax information, including the tax returns he tried to conceal, alongside business records and interviews with Trump insiders, New York Times investigative reporters Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig track Trump’s financial rise and fall, and rise and fall again. A masterpiece of narrative reporting, Lucky Loser is a meticulous examination spanning nearly a century, filled with scoops from Trump Tower, Mar-a-Lago, Atlantic City, and the set of The Apprentice. Here for the first time is the definitive true accounting of Trump and his money—what he had, what he lost, and what he has left—and the myth of Trump, the self-made billionaire, exposed.
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Donald Trump is a lousy businessman rescued by windfalls he didn't earn, according to this stinging debut exposé. Delving into decades worth of financial records, legal settlements, and tax returns, New York Times reporters Buettner and Craig charge Trump with paying too much to acquire hotels, golf courses, and casinos; overspending on construction and decor; and doing it all with borrowed money that saddled his properties with debt and often forced Trump to sell at a loss. The authors argue that Trump was only able to save face because of at least $400 million in bailouts from his father. Equally important was the savvy of reality TV producer Mark Burnett, whose portrayal of Trump as a business titan on The Apprentice boosted the newly minted TV star's flagging brand and positioned him to make lucrative deals licensing his name to other companies. The outlines of this Trump portrait are familiar, but Buettner and Craig provide highly detailed receipts alongside colorful depictions of the former president's limitless braggadocio and unhinged tantrums (Trump once charged into one of his hotels shouting "You're fired!" at the employees and didn't stop until he had fired a guest). The result is a scrupulous takedown of Trump's competence and character.
