Who runs Trump’s empire if he wins the presidency? There are three options. Here they are, based on expert analysis or media reporting.
Trump himself, according to The Atlantic:
Donald Trump could become president of the United States and still keep his day job as chairman of the Trump Organization and impresario of all things Trump-branded. He could even promote policies that advance his business interests.
Historically, presidents have gone to great lengths to avoid these conflicts of interest, but there’s no law requiring them to do so. And Trump has said little about how he would separate his economic interests from his presidential responsibilities. When pressed, he has stated that he might hand control over to family members, but during his run for office he has funneled campaign money to his own companies and tweeted that his presidential prominence might give new life to the allegedly-fraudulent Trump University.
His children, according to Bloomberg:
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said Thursday (September 15) he’d cut ties to his company and have his children and executives run it if he wins the November election.
“I will sever connections and I’ll have my children and my executives run the company and I won’t discuss it with them. It’s just so unimportant compared to what we’re doing about making American great again,” the billionaire real-estate developer and TV personality said in a phone interview on Fox News.
“I would absolutely sever, I would have nothing to do with my company,” Trump added.
A blind trust, according to NPR:
It’s a legal arrangement sometimes used by elected officials to avoid potential conflicts. An independent trustee takes over an official’s investment portfolio; the official cannot direct or advise the trustee on investment decisions. Most presidents have had blind trusts since Lyndon Johnson in 1963. President Obama is an exception to this practice. He doesn’t have a blind trust because his assets are primarily held in plain vanilla index funds and Treasury notes.
A blind trust works for liquid assets: stocks, bonds, other financial instruments. Trump has plenty of those, but his biggest assets are all about the Trump brand. The golf courses, high-rises and so forth can’t be easily unloaded. Dropping the Trump name would very likely reduce their value.
Based on these options, he might be able change the name, unofficially, of the presidential residence to The Trump White House.
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