In a new Washington Post exposé, victims of and participants in President Trump’s sham university outline how Trump’s attitude, tactics and ego were demonstrated in running that scam and how his current methods for addressing national crises echo those failures.
Launched in 2005, Donald Trump promised Trump University would be a revolutionary institution, launching entrepreneurs into successful real estate ventures and helping participants grow their wealth into fortunes.
The unaccredited classes, however, were actually just high-pressure sales events to coerce participants to spend more, without any intention of fulfilling the courses’ goals, missions or obligations.
Amid multiple investigations and lawsuits, Trump University was shuttered in 2011. Donald Trump paid a $25 million settlement relating to two class action suits and a case by the New York State Attorney General’s office.
Some involved say they understand it was a scam from the first time they heard how the “university” operated, according to the Post:
Stephen Gilpin was one of Trump University’s instructors. He recalled sitting in on another instructor’s class shortly after joining the school in 2007. It was nothing more than an up-sell, he said, laden with false promises.
“I thought, ‘Oh my God, we’re all going to be arrested,’ ” Gilpin said.
Now, he and others said, the Trump administration is trying a similar tactic again, by asking people to believe Trump’s rosy predictions about the pandemic — in the face of an increasingly grim reality.
“It’s the same thing he does today,” said Gilpin, who left the school in 2011. “His behavior has now become our norm.”
However, the 5,000 customers the operation attracted didn’t understand the set-up, paying $1,500 to $35,000 for a series of seminars that promised riches but delivered nothing.
“It was a bitter thing for me. Here I am, I am a lowly schoolteacher, public school teacher. Donald Trump is, according to him, a very rich man,” Vallie Dean of Richmond, Virginia told The Post. “Now here I am, having to pay money back for enriching someone that’s already rich.”
Apart from the classes, she paid for a Trump investment in Mississippi that never materialized. In all, she spent more than $30,000 and has nothing to show for it.
Trump’s victims and the attorneys who sued him say they recognize a parallel in how he dealt with the accusations of defrauding Trump University customers and how he’s handling the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump attacked his critics of the University. He denied all accusations that there were any problems. He attempted to discredit the victims. And he claimed everything was just fine: the students were overwhelmingly satisfied with their instruction.
Those tactics reflect how he’s dealt with the coronavirus: first denying that it was a problem, and then claiming it was all a “hoax” to discredit him. He’s claimed governors and health care workers are satisfied with the assistance provided by the federal government. And now he and his administration are attacking professionals like Dr. Anthony Fauci, whom Trump views as undermining his claims.