Donald Trump, currently leading nationally in the Republican presidential candidate polls, is a man many are arguing would be a great fit for the presidency, mainly due to his ability to speak his mind and his financial ability to avoid campaign contributions from corporations. This, however, is a bold-faced lie.

There is one big controversy that needs to be clarified that has been misrepresented about Donald Trump for a very long time: He is not a self-made millionaire, and he is not a financially responsible or a financially powerful individual. Rather, he is a con artist. Trump plays a similar game to the politicians that he pretends to be nothing like. 

Donald Trump’s massive fortune was not at all his own creation. In actuality, the credit for his success should go to the Trump Organization’s creator and original operator Fred Trump Jr. At the age of 15, this true entrepreneur went into real estate development and created Elizabeth Trump & Son Co. with his mother. Fred Trump took over the New York apartment complex development scene, and in the 1970s, Fred lent Donald, his son, enough money to join in the real estate business. Fred focused on Brooklyn and Queens while he let Donald focus on Manhattan. This allowed Donald to work without hardly any competition in New York. “It was good for me, being the son of somebody; it could have been competition for me. This way, I got Manhattan all to myself,” said Donald Trump.

Donald did not start his own business. He inherited one, along with a massive fortune from his father that is estimated at around $250 million. As is common knowledge, it is much easier to make profits when you already have large sums of money to throw around, and unless one is a complete imbecile, it is very hard to tank a million-dollar business.

And yet, somehow Trump managed to run his father’s business (now called the Trump Organization) $5 billion in debt in 1990. Thanks to a bailout pact involving seventy different banks, Trump was able to defer on $1 billion of that debt himself and take out loans for many of his real estate properties. Think about that, Trump supporters. This presidential candidate isn’t the genius issuing bailouts to Wall Street, he was the one receiving them.

Oddly enough, the Trump Organization accrued that $5 billion debt while Donald boasted about his ability to manipulate government agencies into granting him tax abatements – tax exemptions or reductions – and other subsidies that allowed Trump to personally profit. Karen Burstein, a former auditor general of New York City, reviewed a massive project by the Trump Organization in the 1980s and estimated he had cheated the city out of around $2.9 million. 

“It’s extraordinary to me that we elevated someone to this position of public importance who has openly admitted that he has used government’s incompetence as a wedge to increase his private fortune,” said Burstein.

“When I work for myself, I try to make the maximum profit,” said Trump.

Worth noting, Hyatt Hotels sued Trump in 1994 for failing to pay his half of a $37 million renovation on the Grand Hyatt, a New York hotel purchased by Trump in partnership with Hyatt Hotels with a 40 year tax exemption deal made by Trump that cost taxpayers $60 million in the first decade alone. Very profitable indeed, Mr. Trump.

If Trump already abuses government assistance for personal financial gain by lying to politicians saying he’s just trying to help renovate their buildings, why do his supporters think that he’s being honest when he claims he’ll work to better America for the people? Aside from his dishonest business practices, take a look at a few choice quotes from the man many praise for speaking his mind.

In speaking about his own daughter, Trump said, “She does have a very nice figure. I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”

The Huffington Post, a news site which I applaud for making a point of reporting on Trump’s presidential campaign in their Entertainment section instead of in their Political section, was the subject of his political wisdom on Twitter. Regarding the founder of the new site, Trump said, “Arianna Huffington is unattractive both inside and out. I fully understand why her former husband left her for a man – He made a good decision.”

Trump also obviously knows how to handle issues of social justice and racial inequality in a politically correct manner. Regarding this year’s riots in Baltimore, Trump posted on Twitter, “Our great African American President hasn’t exactly had a positive impact on the thugs who are so happily and openly destroying Baltimore!” 

Only a true diplomat like Trump could speak so eloquently. Please Ichabods, do not take this man’s attempt for the presidency seriously. Cue Trump telling me to go back to Univision.