Donald Trump's defense doesn't disappoint (except maybe legally)

With Trump University being sued for $40 million, the titan says his students love the classes. Let's take a look

Published August 26, 2013 3:35PM (EDT)

                                (AP/Dan Hallman)
(AP/Dan Hallman)

"Possible 2016 presidential candidate" Donald Trump has been sued for a mere 40 million dollars.

This sum doesn't begin to cover the amount of fraud that this orange-bellied napalm cloud has unleashed on the pathetic, enabling American public, Western civilization, and human culture. Yes it's a start! Eventually he must be sued for a full $10 trillion for even existing, if he even does exist. (It's still possible "Donald Trump" is just a poison corporate nerve gas that fills up the television box, a 30-year-old late Cold War defense initiative that Reagan was tricked into funding and eventually got "out of hand.")

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman targeted Trump over his "Trump University" -- later renamed the "Trump Entrepreneur Initiative" -- a for-profit educational institution (there's a clue!) that appears to work like so:

1. People pay Donald Trump between $1,495 and $35,000.

2.

3.
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4.

5.

So it's more or less like most universities.

The 5,000 budding not-entrepreneurs who paid Donald Trump thirty-five thousand dollars (/took out massive loans) -- Jesus Christ, you 5,000, we're on your side and trying to have sympathy here, but... -- according to Schneiderman, "thought they would at least meet Trump, but instead all they got was their picture taken in front of a life-size picture of the star of The Apprentice."

Which is comical, except for the fact of it being real. If anything it lacks the imagination that someone of Trump's grifting caliber could've imagined. What about a Trump "Platinum Elite" category where you pay the man, say, $250k to get shot in the face? I WILL SHOOT YOU IN THE FACE, ME, DONALD TRUMP, STAR OF TELEVISION'S THE APPRENTICE AND LET'S SAY FUTURE PRESIDENT OF AMERICA. VERY VERY GOOD DEAL. At least then you'd get something for your money.

Trump's lawyer's defense rests on two grounds.

First, Trump "provided nearly 11,000 testimonials to Schneiderman from students praising the program and said 98% of students in a survey termed the program 'excellent.'" And yet those testimonials were not powerful enough to stave off a two-year investigation that was launched after "dozens of people had complained to the authorities in New York, Texas, Florida and Illinois about the institution."

Team Trump's other defense is that Schneiderman is "politically motivated" to target this obvious monster after he didn't give him enough money in campaign donations. (This is what Trump typically says whenever a public figure criticizes and/or sues him.)

We tried to visit the website for the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative to get a little basic info about the program. Yeah, it looks like what a scam website might look like: When you click the "Home" tab, see, the site redirects you to exactly where you are, the "My Network" tab, because this entire thing is quite possibly a scam.

Trump has also set up a web site to combat the charges, 98percentapproval.com. The front page is a few .jpgs of New York Post articles trashing Eric Schneiderman. But you can also read the class surveys. Many of the students complain about how cold the seminar room was, or why they didn't get lunch, or about how they didn't understand anything anyone was saying and it cost too much. Where do we sign up!


By Jim Newell

Jim Newell covers politics and media for Salon.

MORE FROM Jim Newell


Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Donald Trump Eric Schneiderman For-profit Colleges Fraud Lawsuit