Trump: the implosion continues

[Soul Crusher]

Do you mean to say a 12 year old could better clean up the disaster left by the Bush administration?  Is that what you mean to say?   Or do you cling to the idea that Bush/Cheney was a successful administration. 

How is that obamacare working out moron?   The one law this pos got signed and its a trainwreck 

[BayGBM]

Here are the leading Republicans who rushed to defend Donald Trump on race: ______
by Phillip Bump

On Dec. 29, 2014, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) admitted that he'd attended an event hosted by white supremacist leaders a decade earlier. The timing was awkward for Republicans, since Scalise had recently moved into the upper ranks of the House caucus after Eric Cantor lost his reelection bid. Within 24 hours, then-Speaker John A. Boehner stood by Scalise.

"More than a decade ago, Representative Scalise made an error in judgment, and he was right to acknowledge it was wrong and inappropriate," Boehner said in a statement. "Like many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, I know Steve to be a man of high integrity and good character. He has my full confidence as our Whip, and he will continue to do great and important work for all Americans."

It was important for Boehner to step up for Scalise because Scalise was part of the party's leadership team. Yet the day after Hillary Clinton delivered a stinging indictment of Donald Trump, the Republican Party's ostensible leader, on the same subject, other Republican leaders haven't risen to his defense.

The Republican Party has tweeted repeatedly since Clinton's speech, praising the National Park Service, hitting Clinton on her foundation and pledging to return to the Constitution. It offered no press release in defense of its nominee, issuing one only about Clinton having not held a press conference since last year.

That's been the only subject of Republican Chairman Reince Priebus's tweets, too, including one this morning.

Speaker Paul D. Ryan's website (where Boehner's 2014 statement currently lives) includes an update about constituent outreach by Rep. Mac Thornberry added since Thursday — but, then, Ryan's official page isn't the proper place for a political defense. The Facebook page for his campaign has updated twice since Clinton's speech with a YouTube video of one of his speeches and a call to update the tax code.

Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chair of the House Republican Conference, has also weighed in on social media since Clinton's speech: She gave a shout-out to a local business and wrote about preventing forest fires.

NBC's Frank Thorp reached out to both Ryan's office and that of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The results?

Recap: Asked for response to Clinton's 'alt-right' speech:

Ryan spox: "Doubt he saw it."
McConnell spox: "I don't think he saw the speech."

The speech was not a surprise. Clinton announced that she intended to link Trump to the so-called alt-right earlier this week, making it clear she would imply that the Republican nominee had the backing of racists and anti-Semites. In a normal election cycle, that would prompt the party to line up leaders and surrogates in defense of their candidate. This isn't a normal election cycle.

MSNBC's Benjy Sarlin (who noticed the GOP's silence early) points out that his network asked party spokesman Sean Spicer about the lack of a coordinated rebuttal to Clinton. "I don't know," Spicer said. "I think Congress is in recess."

Congress is in recess, as it has been since the middle of July. (Nice work if you can get it.) That didn't stop members of Congress from tweeting. By my quick tally, there have been 86 tweets from Republican members of Congress since Clinton's speech. A handful have dealt with the presidential race; none can be interpreted as a defense of Donald Trump.

One Republican's tweet can be interpreted as the opposite.

    Well, it was good while it lasted... https://t.co/QV6PXUoRX7
    — Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) August 26, 2016

There has also been no defense of the Republican nominee from his running mate. After a string of tornadoes in his home state, Gov. Mike Pence returned to Indiana. His tweets over the past day have dealt with the state's recovery. His campaign Twitter account, which could easily have tweeted a link to a statement defending Trump, didn't. He hasn't tweeted there since Wednesday.

Trump does have statements on his website offering a defense. Three come from members of the "Republican Leadership Initiative," a party effort to teach the basics of political campaigns to those interested. So the party-connected individuals we can say with certainty have defended Trump are Alfred Liz, Patricia Bober and Oz Sultan.

This is not exactly a circling of the wagons.

[Coach is Back!]

Do you mean to say a 12 year old could better clean up the disaster left by the Bush administration?  Is that what you mean to say?   Or do you cling to the idea that Bush/Cheney was a successful administration. 

Still Bushs fault? Lmao hahahahahhaha

[BayGBM]

Trump’s repellent inner circle
By Michael Gerson

Donald Trump is undergoing his own “extreme vetting.” And we are learning a great deal about the quality of his public pledges.

In no particular order, Trump has shifted his position on raising the federal minimum wage (against it, for it, get rid of it, leave it to the states, put it at $10 an hour); on fighting the Islamic State (bomb the “hell out of them” and take the oil fields, let our regional allies take the lead, declare war and send in troops, let Russia take care of it); on taxes for the wealthy (increase them, cut them dramatically, make the wealthy pay more, make everyone pay less); on his Muslim ban (exclude all Muslims, keep Muslims out except for members of the military and current residents, it was “just a suggestion,” ban Muslims from countries with a history of terrorism, impose “extreme vetting”); on the national debt (eliminate it in eight years, prioritize massive infrastructure spending, renegotiate debt with creditors, just “print the money”).

Now, concerning his defining promise to round up and deport 11 million undocumented men, women and children, Trump is undergoing a rapid, convulsive transition from Mr. Hyde into Dr. Jekyll. In the movies, this role would require hours in the chair of a highly skilled makeup artist. Trump has Sean Hannity.

For much of Trump’s fan base, these details couldn’t matter less. The Trump revolution is mainly a matter of personnel, not policy. Put the right man in charge who will hire the “best people” and fire all the corrupt, stupid failures. Trump’s primary appeal — and his main source of self-regard — is his skill as a negotiator, manager and talent scout.

Here we are also getting a good feel for the candidate. Trump’s campaign has been a roiling, noxious, dysfunctional mess from the start, characterized by public feuds, subject to sudden leadership changes and unable to fulfill key functions (like actually having a campaign apparatus in key states). And Trump’s personnel selections have been both instructive and disastrous.

Consider this list of Trump’s chosen: Former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski had a brutal and demeaning style that resulted in a staff revolt, and his manhandling of a female reporter overshadowed the Trump campaign for weeks. Former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was paid lucrative consulting fees by foreign interests and resigned after reports that Ukraine anti-corruption investigators were scrutinizing millions in alleged payments there.

Longtime adviser Roger Stone is a crackpot conspiracy theorist who asserts that Bill and Hillary Clinton are “plausibly responsible” for the deaths of roughly 40 people and that Hillary Clinton should be “executed for murder.” Confidant Roger Ailes recently stepped down from his job at Fox News under a cloud of sexual harassment claims. And Steve Bannon, Trump’s new campaign chief executive, is known for his bullying tactics and for running a website (Breitbart News) that flirts with white nationalism.

There are a few exceptions to this pattern — Kellyanne Conway and Mike Pence come to mind — but Trump has hired and elevated some of the very worst people in American politics, known for their cruelty, radicalism, prejudice and corruption.

What does all this say about Trump as a prospective president?

First, it means that the ideal of leadership Trump displayed as a reality television star is his actual view of leadership. It is not an act. In Trump’s view, leaders elevate themselves by belittling others. They yell and abuse and bully. And their most important quality is absolute loyalty to the great leader, the star of the show. This is a view of leadership that would make H.R. Haldeman cringe.

Second, Trump has managed to pick a team that directly undermines many of his campaign objectives. Need to appeal to women? Include a man in your inner circle accused by many of misogyny. Need to appeal to minorities? Elevate a figure associated with the racially divisive alt-right. Need to challenge the corrupt status quo in Washington? Hire a consultant for oppressive governments. Trump’s rhetoric is belied by his choice of friends and associates.

Finally, ideology doesn’t seem to be the main criteria in Trump’s selections. The hiring of Bannon does make Trump’s appeal to the alt-right explicit. But Breitbart News is mainly known in this election for slavish devotion to the cult of Trump. This attribute may well guide most of Trump’s top-level personnel choices, including for the Supreme Court.

Trump, more than most, needs to surround himself with people who compensate for his alarming weaknesses. Instead, his choices demonstrate and amplify those weaknesses, becoming one more reason to utterly reject his leadership.

[BayGBM]

Donald Trump Hires First and Deals With Background Questions Later
By ALAN RAPPEPORT

Donald J. Trump has called for “extreme vetting” to determine who is allowed to enter the United States, but when it comes to his presidential campaign, he has shown a propensity to be lenient when it comes to the kinds of red flags that might scare off other candidates.

Last week, Paul Manafort resigned from Mr. Trump’s campaign after revelations of his Ukrainian business dealings. On Thursday, Stephen K. Bannon, the newly hired campaign chief executive, was ensnared in controversy over domestic violence charges made against him in the 1990s.

The hires and subsequent firestorms have created distractions for Mr. Trump’s campaign and raised questions about the management style of a Republican nominee who has based his candidacy on his business acumen and his ability to surround himself with the best people.

The case against Mr. Bannon, who took a leave from the conservative website Breitbart News to join the campaign, was eventually dropped. He had pleaded not guilty to allegations that he had grabbed his wife by the wrist and neck during an altercation and threatened her with retribution if she testified against him.

Mr. Manafort was never charged with any crimes, but his leadership role in the campaign became untenable after it became known that $12.7 million from a pro-Russia political party had been earmarked for him. The revelation underscored criticism that Mr. Trump is too cozy with Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin.

A squeaky-clean past does not appear to be a prerequisite for working on the Trump campaign. On Thursday, the campaign hired Bill Stepien, a former top aide to Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey whose role in the George Washington Bridge lane-closing scandal led to his firing. Mr. Stepien, who is expected to bolster Mr. Trump’s political operation, was excluded from a top-level role in Mr. Christie’s presidential campaign because of his involvement in the scandal engulfing the governor’s administration.

“I’m betting he hasn’t done any due diligence on any of these folks,” Dave Ulrich, a management professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, said of Mr. Trump. “It’s leadership on instinct.”

The Trump campaign would not discuss its vetting process for hiring people, and it was unclear if Mr. Trump knew about Mr. Bannon’s brush with the law.

“I don’t know what he was aware of with respect to a 20-year-old claim where the charges were dropped,” Kellyanne Conway, Mr. Trump’s new campaign manager, told ABC News on Friday.

Mr. Bannon, Mr. Manafort and Mr. Stepien are not the first of Mr. Trump’s hires to come with baggage. Mr. Manafort’s predecessor, Corey Lewandowski, also came with some warning signs. As a congressional aide, he was once arrested after he brought a gun to work. He also ended up distracting Mr. Trump’s campaign after he was charged with battery in April for allegedly grabbing the arm of a reporter. Those charges were later dropped.

Mr. Trump, who once tried to trademark the phrase “you’re fired,” which he popularized as star of “The Apprentice,” has shown a tendency to hire with his gut in other instances. During a news conference at the construction site of his Washington hotel in March, he plucked a woman from the audience and offered her a job with his company.

“She seemed like a good person to me,” Mr. Trump said after the event.

Other presidential campaigns have had thorough vetting processes when bringing on new staff members. A former aide to Mitt Romney, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss the inner workings of that campaign, said that the 2012 nominee did extensive background checks and that potential hires who had even D.W.I. convictions did not make the cut.

Some said that Mr. Trump’s penchant for giving second chances could be a good thing, as people who have had personal or career setbacks often work harder to make the most of such opportunities.

“They are grateful for the opportunity,” said Steve Kerr, an adviser to Goldman Sachs who used to lead the Jack Welch Management Institute, an online educational program. However, Mr. Kerr said, it is important for someone doing the hiring to be aware of any black marks that could be relevant to a new position.

“It would be incompetent vetting and recruiting if he didn’t know this stuff,” he added.

[240 is Back]

That's a good point about trump and vetting.

I cannot think of any campaign in recent years with this much turnover.  First was Cory, and ex cop that lied about putting hands on a woman.  Next was manafort, likely a puppet of foreign govt.  new guy has issues with with beating and worse, as the news showed today. 


And it's not even like these guys are doing that amazing a job.  If you're going to hire scumbags, they need to at least be very good at their jobs.  Well, unless their job is to lose ;-)

[BayGBM]

At Least 110 Republican Leaders Won’t Vote for Donald Trump.
Here’s When They Reached Their Breaking Point.
By KAREN YOURISH and LARRY BUCHANAN

This list includes current and former members of Congress, governors and high-level officials from Republican administrations. People shaded in blue have said they will vote for Hillary Clinton...

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/29/us/politics/at-least-110-republican-leaders-wont-vote-for-donald-trump-heres-when-they-reached-their-breaking-point.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=b-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

[BayGBM]

Trump can’t fake love of ‘the blacks’
By Kathleen Parker

When Donald Trump says he has a great relationship with “the Blacks,” I wonder if he also gets along well with the Smiths. We know he’s tight with the Whites.

But what’s with the definite article?

During a brief dalliance with Google, I learned that Trump has used “the” before whites at least once — when commenting that Black Entertainment Television doesn’t offer awards to “the whites.” But for the most part, he reserves “the” for “the blacks,” or, as most people would say, “blacks,” if they don’t say “African Americans.”

Oftentimes, you’ll find the word “people” following “black,” as in: Black people are people, too, which is what I want to say to Trump every time he says “the blacks.”

“The blacks” is such an odd way of referring to any group of people (the Asians, the whites, the Latinos) precisely because it does what it shouldn’t. “The,” as Trump uses it, effectively functions as a separatist term, which tells us a great deal about Trump’s attitude toward, if I may, black people. Even while insisting that he has a good relationship with “the blacks,” Trump betrays an objectifying posture that would suggest otherwise. I don’t doubt that he has friends who happen to be black or black employees with whom he is cordial, if not friendly. At a certain economic level, race erases itself and racial identity becomes irrelevant.

But these associations are quite apart from speaking to a broad African American community, not to mention non-African American people of color, or from having empathy for minority groups.

Digging up old photos of Trump snuggling with Al Sharpton is laughable as evidence that Trump has any connection to a diverse community of black people.

Nor is speaking to a largely African American community in Detroit — or to an Iowa rally of mostly whites about “the blacks” — likely to shift Trump’s dismal poll numbers showing that his appeal to black voters is approximately commensurate with the number of older white males who pray for a President Hillary Clinton.

This, among other reasons, is why Trump most likely will not be the next president of the United States. You can’t fake love, and nothing’s worse than a would-be wooer who says all the wrong things.

Trump can still win the presidency without blacks, but he can’t win without a healthy chunk of nonwhite voters, including Hispanics and Asians, whose numbers have dramatically increased the past couple of decades.

Nor can the Republican Party long survive without attracting minorities and young voters. The truth is, whites determined to get their country back would do better to skip the Trump rallies and invest in some new bed linens and champagne — for romance, silly. A little bubbly between the sheets will grow the white voting bloc far more efficiently than building walls with definite articles and eye-rollingly insulting pandering.

The future of the Republican Party and the presidency comes down to simple math. White birthrates are down to almost nil. Minorities are swelling the electorate with high birthrates and immigration. This can be done without a calculator.

Given Trump’s egregious, minority-slamming rhetoric, combined with his uniquely offensive charm, there seems little chance he’ll be pulling in enough nonwhite votes to win. Meanwhile, the white electorate is shrinking. In 2012, whites were 72 percent of the electorate, compared with 88 percent in 1992. Estimates by GOP pollster Whit Ayres are that the 2016 electorate will be 69 percent white and 31 percent nonwhite. Thankfully, we acknowledge Ayres’s book, “2016 and Beyond,” in which he does the math so we don’t have to.

So let’s say that Trump wins the same share of white votes that Mitt Romney did in 2012 — 59 percent. He still needs 30 percent of nonwhite votes to win the election, according to Ayres. Recent history offers little hope of this outcome: Romney won only 17 percent of the nonwhite vote and John McCain just 19 percent.

Alternatively, Ayres suggests that if Trump doesn’t exceed Romney’s 17 percent nonwhite vote, then he’ll need a whopping 65 percent of white votes to win, and droves of white Republicans have already abandoned ship. Moreover, such a landslide has happened only once in the past 40 years — in 1984, when the Republican nominee won 66 percent of white votes, as well as 9 percent of blacks.

Needless to say, The Trump is no Ronald Reagan.

[Las Vegas]

The first thing I'd point out, is that African-Americans tend to move alike when they vote, and not sure that's seen to the same extent in any other such group.  Is it?  If someone could point it out, I'd appreciate it.

[BayGBM]

Several of Donald Trump's Latino advisors resign after his immigration speech
by Kurtis Lee

Donald Trump has held photo ops with his National Hispanic Advisory Council and in recent weeks boasted about his increasing support from this crucial voting demographic.

But that was before his speech on immigration this week.

On Thursday, several who sit on the council announced their resignation, citing Trump's refusal to truly listen to their views on immigration reform.

Jacob Monty, a Houston-based immigration lawyer who was a member of the council, said in a Facebook post that he gave Trump a plan that would "improve border security, remove hardened criminal aliens and most importantly, give work authority to millions of honest, hard-working immigrants" in the country.

"He rejected that," wrote Monty, announcing his resignation from the council after Trump's speech. "So I must reject him."

In his immigration address Wednesday, Trump put forward several hard-line proposals, including new limits and entry criteria for legal immigrants, while also reaffirming a pledge to deny legal status to anyone who remains in the country illegally. 

CBS News reported Thursday that 15 of nearly two dozen members on the council had resigned.

Ramiro Pena, a Texas pastor on the council, told Politico that Trump's speech had potentially cost him the election. Pena added that he'd have to reconsider being part of a "scam."

Alfonso Aguilar, who oversees Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, is not on the council but was another prominent surrogate of Trump's who backed off his support Thursday.

“For the last two months, he said he was not going to deport people without criminal records," Aguilar said on CNN. "And then we heard yesterday, and I was totally disappointed — not surprised, but disappointed — and slightly misled, because he gave the impression and the campaign gave the impression until yesterday morning that he was going to deal with the undocumented in a compassionate way.”

Trump's remarks came after he visited Mexico earlier in the day, offering subdued remarks alongside the country’s president. During the visit, Trump noted that he has "tremendous feeling for Mexican Americans."

The comments, a clear shift in tone, were far from his invective this election cycle when he denounced Mexican immigrants as "rapists" and drug runners in his first campaign speech

Last month, Trump held a roundtable meeting with members of the council, where they discussed creating jobs and the Republican presidential nominee's plans on immigration.

Among those who attended was Colorado state Rep. Clarice Navarro, who said she left feeling optimistic about Trump.

"I've always felt he does care about the Latino community, and now it's on us to get him elected," she said at the time.

On Thursday, she could not be reached for comment.

Florida Pastor Alberto Delgado said on MSNBC he would remain a member of the council.

“This is the plan he has, so we have to work with what he has and we must try soften that projection,” he said in reference to Trump's combative tone.

[Las Vegas]

...citing Trump's refusal to truly listen to their views on immigration reform.

He gave them and their "views" a shout-out when he described the utter nonsense that is now known as "Immigration Reform".

[Primemuscle]

He gave them and their "views" a shout-out when he described the utter nonsense that is now known as "Immigration Reform".

Do you ever have the feeling that we're all being manipulated?

[TheGrinch]

Do you ever have the feeling that we're all being manipulated?

Long live big brother!!

[Las Vegas]

Do you ever have the feeling that we're all being manipulated?

I do.  That's the name of the game imo.

[Soul Crusher]

The only implosion here is in GayBayLGBT a-hole by Vissy - Trump is moving ahead of the HillCVNT as way things are going

[240 is Back]

I can imagine the outrage right now, if candidate Paul Ryan's emails were being hacked by Assange and Russian Hackers, and Candidate Hilary was on TV asking them for release.   People would be living.  Funny how espionage is alright if it's bringing down someone we dislike.

lots of threads to bump in coming years when hackers do this shit to a republican.

[Yamcha]

I can imagine the outrage right now, if candidate Paul Ryan's emails were being hacked by Assange and Russian Hackers, and Candidate Hilary was on TV asking them for release.   People would be living.  Funny how espionage is alright if it's bringing down someone we dislike.

lots of threads to bump in coming years when hackers do this shit to a republican.

I don't think many people would be against exposing government corruption and mental illness, especially when the media is complacent with it all.

[240 is Back]

I don't think many people would be against exposing government corruption and mental illness, especially when the media is complacent with it all.

what about affairs?  what about medicine?  what about herpes or other embarrasing shit?   Repubs on getbig and Rush were mocking little things in the emails, using them for political gain. 

[Las Vegas]

I don't fully trust WikiLeaks.  Something's up, there.

[Primemuscle]

I don't think many people would be against exposing government corruption and mental illness, especially when the media is complacent with it all.

If there is complacency in the media it's probably out of fear that's what's happening to The Daily Mail, could happen to them. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/01/melania-trump-daily-mail-lawsuit

[Primemuscle]

I don't fully trust WikiLeaks.  Something's up, there.

After watching a recent interview with Julian Assange I absolutely cannot stand him. Talk about punchable faces!

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/world/europe/wikileaks-julian-assange-russia.html?_r=0

http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2016/07/29/wikileaks-hacked-dnc-emails-julian-assange-intv-ac.cnn/video/playlists/dnc-email-hack/

[BayGBM]

How many Trump products were made overseas? Here’s the complete list.
By Michelle Ye Hee Lee

The Hillary Clinton campaign has at least two ads attacking Donald Trump for outsourcing the production of his merchandise. Given Trump’s rhetoric against companies shipping jobs out of the United States — he vowed not to eat Oreo cookies anymore after Nabisco moved some U.S. factory jobs to Mexico — this is a frequent attack on his record as a businessman.

Trump has a long history of outsourcing a variety of his products and has acknowledged doing so. When asked during a Republican primary debate in Miami why voters should trust that Trump “will run the country differently from how you run your businesses,” he answered: “Because nobody knows the system better than me. … I’m a businessman. These are laws. These are regulations. These are rules. We’re allowed to do it. … I’m the one that knows how to change it.”

Trump also encouraged outsourcing to students of Trump University, the now-defunct program that is under litigation over allegations of fraud. In a 2005 post titled “Outsourcing Creates Jobs in the Long Run,” Trump wrote that sending work outside your company “is not always a terrible thing.”

“I know that doesn’t make it any easier for people whose jobs have been outsourced overseas, but if a company’s only means of survival is by farming jobs outside its walls, then sometimes it’s a necessary step. The other option might be to close its doors for good,” Trump wrote in the post.

We searched for sources of Trump products through publicly available data, including online retail stores and public data of shipments at U.S. ports from 2007 through Aug. 17, 2016, gathered by the private company Importgenius.com. The data shows the last port of shipment before entering the United States (meaning Mexico is not included) and specifies the manufactured location for certain items. (Thanks to Kim Soffen, graphics reporter at The Washington Post, who worked with us to analyze the imports database.)

We took inventory below. We welcome reader suggestions for any new products and sources they find, and then we will update the list.
The Facts

Trump apparel

The Donald J. Trump Collection includes ties, suits, dress shirts, eyeglasses and other accessories.

Trump shirts were made in China, Bangladesh, Honduras and Vietnam. PolitiFact Virginia found some Trump sport coats made in India. The Clinton campaign pointed to import data from 2007 that showed a Trump men’s shirt shipment marked as made in South Korea.

Some of the Trump suits on Amazon.com show they were imported, Made in USA or both. BuzzFeed ordered a suit that was listed as both “imported” and “Made in USA” — and ended up with a label showing the suits were made in Indonesia.

Users commented on Amazon.com that the suit that BuzzFeed purchased previously was listed as being imported from Mexico or China. This photo shows a Trump suit that carries a “Made in Mexico” label.

Manufacturing information online is not always reliable — for example, a photo of one shirt shows a “Made in Bangladesh” label, but the item description says it was made in China. This may be a reflection of the different countries that products sometimes pass through before they are ultimately shipped into the United States.

Trump eyeglasses are made in China. Cufflinks and other accessories do not list the source of manufacturing on Amazon.com.

“Success by Trump,” a cologne in the Trump Fragrance line, was manufactured in the United States, according to PolitiFact Virginia. The Trump campaign’s “Make America Great Again” hats are made at a Southern California factory and are labeled “Proudly Made in USA.”

Trump home items

Trump Home has a range of items, including chandeliers, mirrors, bedding, table lamps, cabinets, sofas, barstools, cocktail tables and more.

Trump expanded the Trump Home brand internationally, including in Turkey. A Trump Organization news release shows it partnered with a global luxury furniture brand, Dorya International, to expand the Trump Home brand to a production facility in Turkey. According to Furniture Today, components of the Trump by Dorya furniture were made in Germany, particularly the brass and stainless pieces.

Several Trump Home items are listed as made in China or imported from China — mirrors, ceramic vases, wall decorations, kitchen items and lighting fixtures. The Clinton campaign has pointed to a trademark registration for the Trump Home brand that shows picture frames and other home products were made in India.

The Trump Home by Rogaska tabletop collection featured a crystal and china collection with a company based in Slovenia. Trump bedding comforters are listed as made in USA.

Trump hotel items

Many hotel amenities at Trump’s hotels were manufactured overseas and imported. Trump Hotel pens were made in China or Taiwan, and imported into the United States via South Korea. Shampoo, body wash, moisturizers, shower caps, laundry bags, show bags, pet collars, pet leashes and bath towels at Trump hotels are all listed as made in China.

Trump beverages

The Trump Natural Spring Water is served at Trump hotels, restaurants and golf clubs. Trump water comes from New York or Vermont, and is bottled in New York.

Trump Vodka was manufactured at a distillery in the Netherlands, supposedly distilled five times from “European wheat,” but the distribution company stopped carrying it in 2010. An Israeli company continued to carry Trump Vodka, although the version sold in Israel is different from the original Trump Vodka. The Trump Vodka produced and sold in Israel is made from ingredients that make it kosher for Passover, which made it a popular beverage around the holidays. But the Jerusalem Post reported that it turned out that not all ingredients actually were kosher for Passover.

Note: There’s a Trump Winery located in Charlottesville, Va., but it is reported to be owned by his son, Eric. The Trump Winery website says its name is a registered trademark of Eric Trump Wine Manufacturing, LLC. The winery imports glassware.

The Bottom Line

The Clinton ad claims that “Trump’s products have been made in 12 other countries.” This is correct. We know of at least 12 countries where Trump products were manufactured (China, the Netherlands, Mexico, India, Turkey, Slovenia, Honduras, Germany, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam and South Korea). Further, Trump products transited other countries through the packaging and shipping process — meaning workers in more than 12 countries contributed to getting many of Trump’s products made, packaged and delivered to the United States.

As our inventory shows, manufacturing is a global process. Components of a product of an American company are made in different parts of the world, depending on who offers the most competitive prices, and ultimately imported into the country to be sold to American consumers. It’s not as simple as deciding not to eat an Oreo because Nabisco found a cheaper place to employ some of its workers.

Trump’s practice as a businessman is not consistent with his current rhetoric against trade as a presidential nominee — this vulnerability is backed with more than enough factual evidence. If Trump brand customers took the same stance against his products as he did against Nabisco, it is clear they would be left with few Trump items to buy. However, we do know of at least four Trump products made in the United States: “Make America Great Again” hats, bedding, water and cologne.

[Primemuscle]

Do you suppose being President will cause him to change his business practices? After all he's promised that we will all become well off under his economic plan....whatever that may be. 

[Las Vegas]

Imo it's two different things.  In one, he was competing to make money.  In the other, he would be competing to make the American Public money as CiC.  

He can do both in a lifetime, yes.

Worst case scenario would be other super-rich people viewing it as hypocrisy in some twisted attempt to understand it.

[Primemuscle]

Imo it's two different things.  In one, he was competing to make money.  In the other, he would be competing to make the American public money as CiC. 

He can do both in a lifetime, yes.

Worst case scenario would be other super-rich people viewing it as hypocrisy in some twisted attempt to understand it.

I'm confused. Are you suggesting he can continue to farm out his manufacturing and Real Estate business, hide his supposed wealth in foreign banks to avoid paying taxes while tightening up the same opportunities he enjoys? If he can pull this off without pissing most of the country off, he's genius.