What drives Donald Trump? Greed, and greed alone.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

By Catherine Rampell

Columnist

There’s a common thread that stretches forward from Donald Trump’s financial scandals of the 1980s to his damning phone call with the president of Ukraine.

It’s the self-dealing.

Wherever he was, whatever his title, the president has used the powers at his disposal to enrich or otherwise benefit himself, regardless of what law, fiduciary duty or oath of office bound him to do.

Trump ran his campaign in 2016 on a single premise: greed. (Okay, two premises: greed and racism.) He boasted to his fans about his (inflated) wealth and gilded lifestyle, both products of clever deployments of his avarice. It was a trait he promised, paradoxically, that he’d apply more altruistically once elected.

“My whole life I’ve been greedy, greedy, greedy,” he said at a January 2016 rally. “I’ve grabbed all the money I could get. I’m so greedy. But now I want to be greedy for the United States. I want to grab all that money. I’m going to be greedy for the United States.”

His track record suggested that would be unlikely, perhaps impossible — in part because his life has always been about blurring lines between personal gain and professional or legal responsibilities.

This was the case when the Trump family set up a shell company called All County Building Supply & Maintenance in the early 1990s, to pretend to purchase boilers, cleaning supplies and other building equipment from (real) vendors. This middleman, which existed only on paper, then “resold” everything at an inflated price to the Trump Organization. The purpose of the shell company was to allow Trump’s father, Fred, to transfer huge cash gifts to his children as though they were ordinary business transactions. This helped the Trump family evade a 55 percent estate tax, as the New York Times reported last year.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-drives-donald-trump-greed-and-greed-alone/2019/09/26/927fccde-e099-11e9-be96-6adb81821e90_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions&wpmm=1

[Siwsan]

1. Greed and ego. Definitely I believe his ego is constantly ravenous for feeding

He has no soul. Just greed and ego.

[thegoose]

2. Classic grifter set-up

We all knew it was coming, but the Trumpanzees and Pootie decided it would be better if a ridiculous, bloated orange piece of shit raped the country instead of having a functional government.

[RKP5637]

3. IMO he sees the presidency as a means to enrich himself and F anyone else. It's like a shady

real estate deal and it's on reality TV as he basks in the limelight in his mind, while also feeding his narcissistic sociopath personality and his multifaceted psychoses.

[Skittles]

4. it is narcissism, but greed is a huge part of that

[MurrayDelph]

5. Greed is a big part of his narcissism

But so are lust, sloth and gluttony.

[Lucky Luciano]

6. You forgot envy, sloth, gluttony, pride, lust, wrath, and supreme idiocy. nt

[dalton99a]

7. Incidentally, the same greed that drives the media that gave him fame and turbocharged his candidacy

Man, who would have expected the ride we’re all having right now? This is pretty amazing…. Who would have thought that this circus would come to town?

But, you know—it may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS, that’s all I got to say.

So what can I say? It’s—you know, the money’s rolling in, and this is fun.

- Les Moonves