In 2016, billionaire real estate dealmaker and tv celebrity Donald Trump is campaigning for the 2016 Republican Party presidential nomination. Yet during the 1980's, Trump apparently contributed a lot of money to help fund the election campaigns of Democratic Party politicians in New York City like former Democratic New York City Mayor David Dinkins. As the 1992 book by former Village Voice reporter Wayne Barrett, Trump: The Deals and The Downfall, noted:
"...Though Trump was the largest individual giver in city and state elections from the mid-seventies on, he had voted only three times, routinely skipping even presidential elections...
"When David Dinkins...ran for Manhattan borough president in 1985...Donald [Trump] wanted to help Dinkins without surfacing...So Nick Ribis and several other Trump aides, particularly unknown casino brass from Atlantic City, dumped thousands into the Dinkins coffers without getting noticed. Trump's partner [real estate developer Abe] Hirschfield hosted Dinkins's headquarters in his midtown hotel while simultaneously financing the entry into the race of a second white candidate who had no chance to win but could only help Dinkins, who is Black...Donald [Trump]...did raise $20,000 for GOP candidate [for NYC Mayor] Rudy Giuliani [in 1989), co-chairing one fund-raiser at the Waldorf-Astoria in the spring...Even while he endorsed Giuliani he had Tony Gliedman, as an old tennis buddy of David Dinkins, heading a real estate fund-raising committee for the Dinkins campaign...".
And in its December 7, 1988 issue, the New York Times reported that "Donald Trump" was "prepared to spend $2 million of his money on anti-Koch television commercials in next year's mayoral race," in which Dinkins subsequently defeated former New York City Mayor Koch in the Democratic Party's mayoralty primary.
No comments:
Post a Comment