The Inner Monologue

Donald Trump has always understood that in America, the appearance of success can sometimes be more valuable than success itself.

His business career was built around a simple three-step formula: Buy, then Brag, then Bankrupt.

First, acquire something famous, conspicuous or extravagant—preferably using other people’s money. Second, cover it with the Trump name and proclaim it the biggest, finest or most successful thing ever created. Finally, if the underlying numbers fail, place the business into bankruptcy or restructuring while lenders, investors, contractors, employees and communities absorb much of the damage.

Trump keeps the publicity. Everyone else divides the losses.

That description is deliberately provocative, but it is not merely a joke. Trump-associated companies entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy six times. Trump himself correctly points out that he never filed for personal bankruptcy. That distinction matters legally, but it also illustrates the effectiveness of the model: the corporate entity takes the fall while the man and his brand attempt to walk away.

Now the Kennedy Center appears to be following a remarkably familiar script.

Buy

“Buy” does not always mean paying cash for an asset. In Trump’s world, it means acquiring control over something that already possesses the prestige he wants.

Trump did not create the Plaza Hotel. He bought it.

He did not create Atlantic City or invent casino gambling. He bought prominent casinos and constructed the enormous Trump Taj Mahal.

He did not build his political reputation from decades of public service. He acquired control of the Republican Party and placed his name, personality and grievances at the center of it.

And he did not build the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Congress established it as the nation’s living memorial to President Kennedy. Generations of artists, administrators, donors, audiences and taxpayers created its reputation.

Trump simply took control.

After returning to office, he removed Kennedy Center trustees, installed allies and became chairman himself. A national cultural institution that had long tried to remain broadly nonpartisan was effectively captured by one political personality.

That is the first stage of the model: obtain control of an institution whose reputation was created by somebody else.

The brilliance of the approach—if one can call it that—is that the asset arrives with prestige already attached. Trump does not have to build the reputation from the ground up. He buys, captures or inherits it, and then treats its accumulated value as evidence of his own greatness.

Then Brag

The second stage is the most important because Trump’s true product has never been buildings, casinos, steaks, universities or public policy.

His true product is Trump.

The building is an advertisement. The casino is an advertisement. The presidency is an advertisement. The name is supposed to transform an ordinary undertaking into a monument to exceptional achievement.

The Trump Taj Mahal was promoted as the largest and most spectacular casino in the world. Trump called it the “eighth wonder of the world.” But wonder did not repeal arithmetic. The project carried enormous debt, including high-interest junk bonds, and entered bankruptcy in 1991.

The Plaza Hotel was not simply a hotel investment. It was one of New York’s most recognizable symbols of wealth and status. Trump acknowledged that he had overpaid for it, but owning it gave him something more personally valuable than a sensible return: bragging rights. The hotel entered bankruptcy protection in 1992.

The Atlantic City casinos served a similar purpose. Their scale, marble, chandeliers and enormous signs projected success even as the companies underneath them accumulated unsustainable obligations.

The properties did not merely bear the Trump name. They manufactured the public impression that Trump was richer, more powerful and more successful than the financial statements necessarily showed.

The same process occurred at the Kennedy Center. Trump’s name was added to the façade even though Congress had created the building as a memorial to John F. Kennedy. A federal judge subsequently ruled that the board lacked the legal authority to rename it and ordered Trump’s name removed. Only Congress, the court concluded, could change the name of the institution it had established.

But the attempted renaming reveals the essential Trump instinct. Controlling the Kennedy Center was not enough. Repairing it was not enough. Supporting it was not enough.

The building had to advertise him.

And when a court blocked the branding, Trump declared that he had little interest in continuing the renovation unless he was free to remake the institution on his terms. That response stripped away the pretense that this was only about protecting a national landmark. Apparently, the opportunity to help depended upon receiving the credit.

That is the “brag” portion of the model: the promise that only Trump can save the institution, followed by the insistence that the institution formally acknowledge him as its savior.

Then Bankrupt

The third stage begins when publicity collides with arithmetic.

Trump defenders reasonably note that Chapter 11 bankruptcy is legal and widely used. They are correct. Bankruptcy can preserve a viable company, protect jobs and allow debts to be reorganized. Many competent businesspeople have operated companies that entered bankruptcy.

But six Trump-associated corporate bankruptcies cannot be dismissed as an irrelevant technicality—particularly when they repeatedly involved excessive debt, inflated expectations and highly publicized trophy properties.

The Trump Taj Mahal entered bankruptcy in 1991. The Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, Trump Castle and the Plaza Hotel followed in 1992. Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts sought bankruptcy protection in 2004 with roughly $1.8 billion in debt, and Trump Entertainment Resorts did so again in 2009. The exact count is sometimes disputed because related properties were grouped into larger proceedings, but six corporate filings is the generally accepted total.

The important question is not whether Trump was legally entitled to use Chapter 11. Of course he was.

The important question is: Who received the benefits before bankruptcy, and who carried the losses afterward?

Trump received years of publicity, compensation and the appearance of ownership over a glamorous casino empire. Lenders accepted reduced payments or exchanged debt for equity. Shareholders watched investments deteriorate. Contractors and vendors fought over what they were owed. Employees faced uncertainty while Atlantic City dealt with the remains of a declining casino industry.

Trump’s personal brand survived long enough to become the basis of The Apprentice, which then converted the appearance of business success into television celebrity. The failures became footnotes. The image became the product.

That may be Trump’s most consequential business accomplishment: he repeatedly separated his personal reputation from the performance of the enterprises carrying his name.

If a property succeeded, Trump was responsible.

If it failed, the company went bankrupt.

The Kennedy Center Repeats the Pattern

At the Kennedy Center, the available evidence suggests a disturbingly similar progression.

Trump took control of an established cultural institution. He installed loyal leadership and attempted to attach his name to the building. His political intervention helped alienate artists, donors and portions of the audience. Performances were cancelled, programming diminished, fundraising became more difficult and ticket revenue fell.

Now the Trump-installed leadership says the Center is approaching “certain fiscal collapse,” may soon be unable to meet payroll and maintenance obligations, and could close almost immediately. Most remarkably, trustees reportedly argue that putting Trump’s name on the building may be necessary to secure his help.

This turns the proposed rescue into a branding transaction:

Give Trump the recognition he wants, and Trump may save the institution his takeover helped destabilize.

To be fair, not every Kennedy Center problem began with Trump. The building is more than half a century old and has real maintenance needs. Inspections have revealed water intrusion, aging equipment and other conditions requiring substantial investment. Congress approved $257 million for renovations.

But deferred maintenance does not explain why a repair project must become a personal monument. It does not explain why Trump’s name belongs beside Kennedy’s. Nor does it erase the damage done when a performing-arts institution becomes so politically identified with one leader that artists, donors and audiences withdraw.

A theater survives through relationships. Its physical plant matters, but so do trust, artistic credibility, advance bookings, donors, subscribers and performers willing to appear on its stages. Those intangible assets took decades to build and can be destroyed much faster than marble can be repaired.

That is precisely what makes the Kennedy Center episode so revealing. Trump approached a cultural institution as if it were another trophy property. He saw a famous façade, a prestigious address and an opportunity to place his name in enormous letters.

What he apparently failed to understand—or simply did not value—was the institution behind the façade.

Success for Whom?

The usual debate over Trump’s business record asks whether he is a success or a failure. That may be the wrong question.

A better question is: What does Trump define as success?

If success means building durable businesses that reliably serve customers, pay creditors, reward investors and strengthen their communities, the record is decidedly mixed.

If success means remaining famous, projecting wealth, attaching one’s name to prestigious objects and escaping personal responsibility when the underlying enterprise fails, Trump has been extraordinarily successful.

The bankruptcies were not necessarily interruptions in the model. They were part of the model.

Debt financed the purchase. Bragging inflated the perception of value. Corporate restructuring contained the personal damage. The Trump name moved on to the next opportunity.

That is why “Buy, then Brag, then Bankrupt” is more than a clever phrase. It describes a system for privatizing prestige and socializing failure.

Trump takes personal possession of the accomplishment. The corporation, lender, investor, contractor, taxpayer or public institution inherits the consequences.

At the Kennedy Center, the final insult is that Trump never actually bought the institution. The public already owned it. Taxpayers funded it. Donors supported it. Artists filled it. Audiences sustained it. Congress named it as a memorial to a murdered president.

Trump captured it, claimed it, branded it and now presides over warnings of its impending financial collapse.

If the Kennedy Center ultimately survives through another large infusion of public money, Trump will almost certainly describe the rescue as proof of his unmatched ability. If his name returns to the façade, he will possess the photograph he wanted. If the institution remains diminished, others will inherit the work of rebuilding its finances and reputation.

The brag will belong to Trump.

The bill will belong to everyone else.

That has not merely been an occasional failure of Donald Trump’s business career.

It has been the business model.