So pivoting the meaning of “Trump outrage” from “things we are outraged that Trump has done” to “Things Trump is [probably] outraged about”...
Trump’s required business filings upon leaving office paint a horrible picture about the fiscal health of the Trump Organization. Overall, revenue from 47 of his businesses declined over 35% last year and reported combined losses of over $120MM last year.
The picture for several of his marque properties are even worse. The Washington Post reports:
His Washington hotel, which has a $170 million loan outstanding, saw revenue drop more than 60 percent. His Doral resort in Miami — also carrying a huge debt load — saw a 44 percent drop.
Fundraising from his supporters not withstanding, it’s unclear how Trump can around these properties in 2021 while new lock-down procedures are going into place, he can no longer conduct EO business at his properties and there’s less incentive for lobbyists and foreign governments to patronize those establishments.
Maybe that was his COVID plan - to rush towards herd immunity as fast as possible so that after he is a private citizen again the worst of COVID has passed and people will go back to living normally and patronizing his establishments. VIPs won't be patronizing his businesses as much after he is a private citizen.
After all, Americans have short memories so they'll forget about 500,000 dead quickly won't they? It was unavoidable. He did the best anyone could he'd say.
Now that he isn't President, he can't control the COVID non-response and financially he suffers like everyone else. I'll bet he thought the pandemic could be over in 6 months, it would like he said in speeches - burn itself out. And it didn't. Another gamble that did not pay off. And this is the problem - he gambles rather than play the long slow and steady game.
I base my theory on no facts.
I get that the Trump properties are hurting for cash flow right now, but interest rates are low, and--with the vaccines rolling out--we should expect that customers will flood back in for the second half of the year. For the Florida properties, it's basically one winter season that's been lost.
I think the next three years will be interesting.
Biggest problem the Trump Organization has (as I see it) is the $322MM in personally guaranteed loans which will come due over the next two years. It doesn’t particularly matter that interest rates are low - if he doesn’t have the cash flow to cover those, he’ll be forced into bankruptcy (again!). It’s almost uncanny how similar this all sounds to his Casino days, when he needed to have above-industry-average profits just to keep afloat for a few years. Didn’t work out so well. He was so leveraged (read: Risky) that most banks wouldn’t extend him more credit, nad the ones that did charged him above prime rates.
When your businesses are operating heavily in the rd, and you have debt coming due, and the banks which you have been working with have all publicly dropped you as a client - that’s all the ingredients for a debt spiral. Adding to that, he’s lost several lucrative events, including the PGA (both the scheduled US Open as well as his hoped-for British Open).
Maybe Donnie’s got $500MM on hand he can use to right the ship. Maybe, as you say, customers will come flocking back in Q3/Q4 of this year. Or maybe we’re tipping into a double-dip recession, or customers won’t come back in record numbers, and/or he won’t be able to refinance his debt at record low levels.