Trump: I’ll run America like mybusiness
UNITED STATES: His presidential dreams increasingly in question, Donald Trump pushed his business empire to the centre of his political campaign yesterday.
Taking a break from battleground states, he made the case at his newest hotel that all Americans should look to his corporate record for evidence of how well he’d run the country.
``Under budget and ahead of schedule. So important. We don’t hear those words so often, but you will,’’ said Trump, linking the hotel redevelopment - just blocks from the White House - to his promised performance as president. ``Today is a metaphor for what we can accomplish for this country.’’
Hillary Clinton agreed, but not the way he meant it. She used campaign events in Florida to attack the GOP nominee for having ``stiffed American workers,’’ saying he built his empire with Chinese-manufactured steel, overseas products and labor from immigrants in the country illegally.
``Donald Trump is the poster boy for everything wrong with our economy,’’ she told several thousand supporters in Tampa, Florida. ``He refuses to pay workers and contractors.’’
Trump’s political aspirations have long been deeply intertwined with promoting his corporate goals. He announced his campaign in the gilded lobby of Trump Tower in Manhattan and has held dozens of campaign events at his own properties. His remarks at his new Washington hotel, which has struggled to fill rooms amid the controversy surrounding his presidential bid, followed a visit on Wednesday to his Doral golf course outside Miami.
Though the GOP nominee focused his remarks on his political message, the event was heavy with marketing, too. Standing under glittering chandeliers, top company executives, including his daughter, touted the hotel. And after his brief speech, Trump and his family headed to the hotel’s grand lobby where they cut a ribbon before he flew to North Carolina for what his campaign billed as an urban policy speech.
In Charlotte, Trump unveiled what he billed a ``New Deal for black America’’ in front of a mostly white crowd. Trump, who has struggled to earn the support of minority voters, bemoaned that ``too many African-Americans have been left behind’’ and unveiled a handful of new proposals aimed at revitalising impoverished urban areas.
- AP