Donald Trump bragged Tuesday there’s “nothing like” using other people’s money, hours after a report said he used more than $250,000 from his charitable organization to litigate lawsuits against his business interests.
Trump, while calling for building safe zones in Syria financed by Gulf states, vaunted the benefits of doing business with “OPM.”
“It’s called OPM. I do it all the time in business. It’s called other people’s money,” Trump said. “There’s nothing like doing things with other people’s money because it takes the risk — you get a good chunk out of it and it takes the risk.”
His comments came on the heels of a Washington Post report published earlier Tuesday, which called attention to Trump’s funneling of contributions from the Donald J. Trump Foundation to charities in order to settle lawsuits against Trump. Trump has only sparsely contributed to his foundation. Instead, the foundation is largely funded by outside donors — not Trump himself.
Trump did not make those comments in the context of that report on Tuesday.
The Republican presidential nominee has frequently lauded the benefits of “OPM,” telling his supporters at rallies that he would put the tactic to use for the country’s benefit.
Trump has frequently called for other countries to chip in larger amounts to help pay for the US military to maintain its bases around the world, in addition to calling for Gulf states like Saudi Arabia to bear a larger financial burden in the fight against ISIS and in building a safe zone to shelter refugees.
Trump has called for building a safe zone at the same time as he has stiffly argued against allowing any more Syrian refugees into the US. Even though refugees undergo numerous screenings and a lengthy vetting process that can take more than a year, Trump has argued they could represent a national security threat to the United States.