Explain Like I'm Five

the man made all of his money through debt maxing and then defaulting, dude is a conman, nothing else to it.

That and the apprentice, those are the only way he has ever gotten money.

So most billionaires have most of their wealth in stuff like stocks. They can theoretically sell the stocks to turn them into money, and then buy things, but they have so much stock and the things they want to buy are worth so much money that it's easier and cheaper just to get a loan and spend that instead.

The thing is, Trump has been abusing creditors for his entire long life. Most banks like most billionaires because they make their payments on time, but Trump has not paid many, many people in his life, so much so that most major banks no longer do business with him, and haven't since the 80s.

This is when Trump got involved with the Russian mob. They were willing to extend credit to him when no one else was, hypothetically because he was part of their money laundering operation. Regardless, Trump's access to liquid wealth contracted over this period, and by the 2010s people were speculating that he wasn't even a billionaire anymore.

So his revenue stream changed. He went from directly profiting from real estate and investments to, after many high profile failures, licensing his brand and selling himself. He had always been a bit of a celebrity, but this is when he started making money like one.

From there, shilling out ugly sneakers, overpriced trading cards/NFTs, and other crap basically became inevitable. His recent legal costs have only accelerated the process because he needs money now.

Rule number one of being rich; don't spend your own money.

Umm... Isn't that what Amazon does at a global scale?

One thing that people didn't mention yet: this is the behavior that made him (stay) a billionaire. You don't get to be one by being nice and non-exploitative.

He has to create opportunity for foreign actors to funnel money to him.

It's not illegal to sell a $1,000 watch for $100,000. That way he doesn't have to actually launder the money.

Trump has a lot of wealth on paper, but a lot of it is tied up in real estate, which isn't the easiest thing to turn into cash when you need it. And a lot is tied up in stock, but since he got caught fixing the books for the Trump Organization, he can't really use that as his personal piggybank without a lot of scrutiny. And Truth Social is worth over a billion on paper but will crash if he starts to sell any of his stock, which would cause a lot of new problems right now.

Meanwhile, he is burning through money at an insane rate. I mean historically, he's lost far more money than he's ever been worth. He's always had to have new businesses and schemes to cycle through as the old ones crumble. He basically never made a profit until the Apprentice, and that actually caused problems because he'd structured his operations around losing money, leaving other people holding the bag when things go completely south, writing off the loses for tax purposes, and, well, cooking the books.

But with hundreds of millions in judgements against him, on top of the hundred million plus in legal fees, he's in a bit of a bind. He already had to put a $175 million up for bond to appeal the judgment civil judgment against the Trump Organization. If he loses the appeal, he's out not just the $175 million, but the full $489 million judgement, plus about $115k a day in interest. Plus he's got the E Jean Carroll judgments and ongoing cases because he's a dumb bastard that can't stop himself from committing defamation every time he leaves a courthouse after losing a defamation case.

While he has been funneling money from his PAC to cover his legal bills that only goes so far, and as I understand it, he can't use that for actual judgements against him. If he loses the election, he may be fighting legal battles for years to come, that PAC money will likely dry up, and if he doesn't have the cash when the court demands it, he could see his assets seized and auctioned off. If he wins the election, he can do basically anything and we're all fucked.

So to simplify this a bit, imagine that he spent almost all his money on a lot of properties without getting a single monopoly, while his opponent has hotels on the dark blue and green properties. He keeps trying to survive the gauntlet and pass go to stay in the game, and maybe he can survive by mortgaging everything, but it's much easier for him if he has the cash to pay the bill.

That's his schtick, he's actually just a billionaire cosplayer

Being paid is a kind of attention/validation. The things he's selling are "branding" stuff that feed into his cult of personality. It's probably more of a narcissist thing than a money thing.

A lot of his value is tied up in assets that aren’t liquid (real estate). Also he is probably not worth as much as he says.

But the main reason is that these “cheap crap” things you mention are probably vehicles for money laundering from foreign actors. The best example are the NFTs he was hawking for awhile. Costs next to nothing to make and foreign states can buy a ton of them to give him money without it being easy to detect. Even if it is detected it is still legal to buy silly NFTs, right? Certainly more so than a foreign government giving a candidate bags of cash for nothing.

Because he's not actually a billionaire.

Lists of rich people like Forbes primarily use number approved by the individuals through various means. We know for a fact thanks to the recent fraud case in NY that the Trump Org regularly inflated nearly every number about their business, especially real estate. They regularly inflated the value of property for things like loans and underestimated the value for taxes.

Trump is well known for requesting people not question his finances in collaborative events like his Comedy Central roast where he can control it.

People with actual money doesn't care about that. And that's just the tip of the monetary iceberg. We've learned a lot since Trump decided to run for President the first time. It was probably the worst thing he could have done to keep his grifts running smoothly.

The better question the media should really be asking him every single chance they get - when they aren't continuing to grill him about Laura Loomer - is, "if the economy is so bad under Biden/Harris and your supporters are living paycheck to paycheck, why do you think there is a market for $100,000 watches?"

He's lying, lol.

He's a narcissistic grifter. He gets satisfaction from making money and a feeling of superiority for screwing people over in the process. No amount of money will ever be enough to fill the void of his missing humanity.

Wealth isn't the same as money in bank. Most of Trump's wealth is tied into properties. You can't pay for groceries with a skyscraper. That's why many wealthy people borrow money for everyday spending rather that liquidate (sell) their assets. This applies to pretty much every wealthy person. When someone is a billionaire it doesn't mean they're hoarding billions of cash in bank.

He's never been a billionaire lol

He's a grifter no matter how much money he does or doesn't have.

Also, the debate shouldn't be if trump is or isn't a billionaire. It's if billionaires should even exist.

They shouldn't.

grifters gotta grift

billionaire once, grifter since

He's a liar.

“Supposed to be” - this is why