Chump still hasn't made one consequential deal. Not one.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

"I do good deals, that's what I do," said Donald Trump in 2011, discussing the possibility that he might run for president. "I think this country needs somebody that can do the deal." Five years later, a healthy portion of the electorate (not a majority, alas) decided they agreed with him. Instead of another politician, why not give the presidency to a dealmaker, someone who could solve our problems by getting people around a table and using his extraordinary negotiating skills to work things out? A little horse-trading, a little posturing, a little compromising, bada bing bada boom, and it will all work out! Right?

But a few months into the Trump presidency, we haven't seen too much in the way of deals. As a matter of fact, we haven't seen any deals, at least not any of consequence. Is it possible that Donald Trump was never such a great dealmaker in the first place?

That's one way to look at it. Trump has made some lucrative deals; in fact, in recent years his company has been increasingly dependent on licensing deals, in which he sells the rights to use his name to a developer putting up an apartment building or a resort in some far-flung locale. The developer gets the cachet of the Trump name (such as it is), and Trump gets the licensing fees without having to do much of anything. It's a pretty good deal for all concerned.

...

http://theweek.com/articles/692146/president-trump-still-hasnt-made-consequential-deal-not

[Gothmog]

1. Trump has been a failure so far

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. I'm waiting to see one frickin deal.

Bush had No Child Left Behind. Bush had Medicare Expansion. Bush had the IWR (not good).

[njhoneybadger]

3. trump deals suck

For months in 1987, Donald Trump maneuvered to take control of the hulking, unfinished Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City. He snapped up stock in the parent company after its owner died and then made a surprise bid to take the company private.

With the Taj, along with two casinos he already owned in the city, Trump could dominate gambling on the East Coast. But first he needed to convince state gambling regulators that he was financially stable and could raise enough cash to complete the $1 billion project.

On Feb. 8, 1988, at a licensing hearing in front of the state Casino Control Commission, Trump said he could pull it off for one main reason: He was Donald Trump. Because of his reputation as a dealmaker, he said, bankers were lining up to lend him money at prime rates. That meant he could avoid the risky, high-interest loans known as junk bonds.

“I’m talking about banking institutions, not these junk bonds, which are ridiculous,” Trump testified, according to transcripts of the hearing. “The funny thing with junk bonds is that junk bonds [are] what really made the companies junk.”

Trump received the approvals he needed for the Taj, but the prime-rate loans never materialized. Determined to move forward, he turned to the very junk bonds he had derided in the hearing. He agreed to pay the bond lenders 14 percent interest, roughly 50 percent more than he had projected, to raise $675 million. It was the biggest gamble of his career.

In April 1990, the Taj opened as the world’s largest casino-hotel complex, joining Trump’s other holdings already operating in Atlantic City, the Trump Plaza and Trump’s Castle. But Trump could not keep pace with his debts on the three casinos. Six months later, the Taj defaulted on interest payments to bondholders as his finances went into a tailspin. In July 1991, Trump’s Taj Mahal filed for bankruptcy, the first and most significant of the four that his companies have experienced.


nvestigations
Trump’s bad bet: How too much debt drove his biggest casino aground
By Robert O'Harrow Jr. January 18, 2016