Giuliani frets that Trump's children would be 'out of work' if Trump Organization was put in a blind trust

By Fusion Staff  |  November 13, 2016 | 9:50pm
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During an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday, surrogate for President-elect Donald Trump and prospective attorney general Rudy Giuliani worried that Trump’s children would be “out of work” should the president-elect put his assets, including the company three of his adult children are senior executives at, in a blind trust.

“I think he is in a very unusual situation, he basically would put his children out of work,” Giuliani fretted. “They’d have to go start a whole new businesses and that would set a set of whole new problems.”

As anchor Jake Tapper repeatedly pointed out to Giuliani, having your children run your company does not make it a blind trust. But as Giuliani pointed out, presidents are not subject to laws requiring them to put assets in a blind trust—it’s merely tradition. (An exception: President Obama has assets in index funds and treasury notes, which are disclosed.)

During a January Fox Business Republican primary debate, Trump seemed to not know what a blind trust is. “I would put it in a blind trust. Well, I don’t know if it’s a blind trust if Ivanka, Don and Eric run it. But—is that a blind trust? I don’t know.” It’s very much not—especially if your children are also on your presidential transition team. And, as a September Newsweek investigation showed, the Trump Organization has been involved in politically-tinged deals all over the world.

As to Giuliani’s worries that the Trump children will be “out of work”—no reason why they can’t just go into the other family business: Reality TV.

Sam Stecklow is the Weekend Editor for Fusion.

 
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