DAVE ROSS

David Fahrenthold: US taxpayers have been footing the bill at Trump properties

Oct 28, 2020, 2:12 PM | Updated: 3:37 pm

Trump properties...

President Trump at his Doral, Florida property in 2016. (Getty Image)

(Getty Image)

Entering into the final week of campaign season, Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold talked to KIRO Radio’s Dave Ross about the election storylines he’s looking at right now.

First and foremost, Fahrenthold cited concerns over President Trump’s debt, and how that could prove problematic if he wins a second term.

“If you re-elect Trump, you’re going to create this incredible situation where the sitting president owes a whole bunch of money to banks — mostly one bank — that his properties really can’t pay,” he noted. “It would be an enormous conflict of interest.”

On the subject of conflicts of interest, Fahrenthold published a new story Tuesday, detailing the many times Trump has used official state visits to his various properties and country clubs to charge taxpayers for everything from $6,000 worth of flowers, to $3 for a glass of water.

In total, Trump’s company has billed American taxpayers at least $2.5 million across 280 visits to his properties since he took office in 2016.

As for other election narratives, Fahrenthold addressed a recent New York Post story, which alleged that a laptop belonging to Joe Biden’s son had information regarding attempts to leverage his family’s influence for personal gain. Despite that, social media platforms limited the story’s circulation thanks to doubts over the veracity of its sources.

In the ensuing days after the story was published, it largely fizzled out, a fate that Fahrenthold wasn’t surprised by.

“It seems like there are two problems with making this into a big deal,” he described. “One of them is that, according to The Wall Street Journal, which looked into this more closely than anybody, there doesn’t seem to be any actual ties to Joe Biden. Obviously, Hunter Biden is involved, but there was really no evidence that Joe Biden was involved in these investments overseas, or that Joe Biden was really involved at all. The second part is the timing on this was in February 2017, at a time when Joe Biden held no office and wasn’t really running for an office.”

Pulitzer Prize winning reporter David Fahrenthold joins KIRO Radio’s Dave Ross every Tuesday on Seattle’s Morning News. Listen to Seattle’s Morning News weekday mornings from 5 – 9 a.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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David Fahrenthold: US taxpayers have been footing the bill at Trump properties