Poll of the Day > Jared Kushner 'tried and failed to get a $500m loan from Qatar.

(+) Yeah! (+)

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/north-america/president-trump/jared-kushner-tried-and-failed-to-get-a-500m-loan-from-qatar-before-pushing-trump-to-take-hard-line-against-country-35919679.html

Jared Kushner tried and failed to secure a $500m loan from one of Qatar's richest businessmen, before pushing his father-in-law to toe a hard line with the country, it has been alleged.

This intersection between Mr Kushner’s real estate dealings and his father-in-law’s international issues highlights the difficulties of an administration besiged with an unprecedented number of conflicts of interest.

Early in his real estate career, Mr Kushner purchased a building at 666 Fifth Avenue in New York for $1.8bn – a record-setting deal at the time.

These days, however, more than a quarter of the office space in the building is vacant. According to The New York Times, the building has not generated enough to pay its debts in several years, forcing Kushner Companies to cover the multimillion-dollar difference.

In 2015 – while Donald Trump was firing up his presidential campaign – Mr Kushner was working with his biological father to keep the property from going underwater. The men zeroed in on Qatari billionaire sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al-Thani (HBJ) as a potential investor.

HBJ eventually agreed to invest $500m in the property, sources tell The Intercept, on the condition that Kushner Companies found the rest of the money for the multi-billion-dollar project on its own.

For help, Kushner Companies turned to Chinese insurance company Anbang. The company agreed to secure a $4bn construction loan to develop the property in early March. But weeks later, as concerns about conflicts of interest mounted, Anbang pulled out.

Without the help of Anbang, Kushner Companies could not meet the rest of HBJ's funding demands. According to one source in the region, HBJ killed the deal. According to another, he simply put it on hold.

Either way, a diplomatic crisis centered around Qatar broke out shortly thereafter. In early June, at least six Gulf Region countries severed or reduced ties to the country, claiming it had supported terrorism.

The countries issued a list of demands necessary for Qatar to regain favor, including shutting down the media network Al-Jazeera, cutting ties with various Islamist groups, limiting ties with Iran, and expelling Turkish troops.

The move sent the tiny, isolated nation into an economic tailspin. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson quickly encouraged the countries to engage in "calm and thoughtful dialogue" and asked for "no further escalation by the parties in the region".

Mr Trump, however, unleashed a string of criticism toward the country, calling it a "funder of terrorism at a very high level".

"So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off," he tweeted on 6 June. "They said they would take a hard line on funding, extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar."

The President's position took Mr Tillerson by surprise, and sources say he suspected Mr Kushner was behind it all.

A source close to Mr Tillerson told The American Conservative that the Secretary of State is convinced that some of Mr Trump's remarks were written by UAE ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba - a close friend of Mr Kushner.

Otaiba weighed in with Jared and Jared weighed in with Trump," the source said. "What a mess."

But even if the source's account of the proceedings is true, it still leaves open the question of why Mr Kushner wanted to convince the President to speak out against Qatar.

Mr Tillerson's reasons for supporting the small country, and urging a quick end to the conflict, however, are more clear: The US runs a crucial airbase out of the country, which runs air campaigns against Isis in Iraq and Syria, and helps protect Israel.

Mr Tillerson left on Monday for a trip to Turkey, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia to help mediate an end to the crisis. Kushner Companies did not respond to The Independent's request for comment.

lol
---

Really looking forward to 8 years of when the president does anything his motives are automatically suspected to have to do with a business dealing. Plus there's the general absurdity of claiming that an entire country is being attacked because one of its citizens wouldn't deal, especially when most of the things that its neighbors want (excluding shutting down the newspaper) don't sound unreasonable.
---

VeeVees posted...

lol

---

Zeus posted...

Really looking forward to 8 years of when the president does anything his motives are automatically suspected to have to do with a business dealing. Plus there's the general absurdity of claiming that an entire country is being attacked because one of its citizens wouldn't deal, especially when most of the things that its neighbors want (excluding shutting down the newspaper) don't sound unreasonable.

It wouldn't be a problem if Trump's dipshit of a son-in-law wasn't such a tool and wasn't begging for handouts from a damn country because his investment flopped like a turd.

Furthermore, expect motives to be called into question when the president is a multi-billionaire and has a history of shitty business deals.

WastelandCowboy posted...

It wouldn't be a problem if Trump's dipshit of a son-in-law wasn't such a tool and wasn't begging for handouts from a damn country because his investment flopped like a turd.

Except he's not begging for handouts from a country, he's trying to get a citizen to invest in a business opportunity. Given that the citizen doesn't even have a government post, it's hilariously #fakenews to suggest that he's a country.

WastelandCowboy posted...

Furthermore, expect motives to be called into question when the president is a multi-billionaire and has a history of shitty business deals.

lolwut?
---

you have to wonder if he didn't buy it just because of its street number
---

This is the presidency where everyone else came out looking older.
---

Zeus posted...

WastelandCowboy posted...

It wouldn't be a problem if Trump's dipshit of a son-in-law wasn't such a tool and wasn't begging for handouts from a damn country because his investment flopped like a turd.

Except he's not begging for handouts from a country, he's trying to get a citizen to invest in a business opportunity. Given that the citizen doesn't even have a government post, it's hilariously #fakenews to suggest that he's a country.

WastelandCowboy posted...

Furthermore, expect motives to be called into question when the president is a multi-billionaire and has a history of shitty business deals.

lolwut?

A citizen who just happens to be one of the country's richest businessmen.

And cut the shit with the "#fakenews" crap. You know better than that.

According to Forbes, Trump is currently worth 3.5 billion.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/donald-trumps-13-biggest-business-failures-20160314

1. Trump Airlines
In 1988, Trump took out a $245 million loan to purchase the planes and routes of Eastern Air Shuttle. He slapped a TRUMP decal and some gold bathroom fixtures on the commuter planes that flew between New York, Boston and Washington, D.C., but customers weren't charmed. Two years after he launched Trump Shuttle, the airline wasn't making enough money to even cover the $1 million monthly interest payment on his loan. Trump ultimately defaulted, surrendering ownership of the airline to his creditors.

2. Trump beverages
Perhaps you're aware of Trump Ice — "one of the purest natural spring waters bottled in the world," according to the Trump's website. The line of water, which is bottled by a third party, is not a failure; according to his FEC disclosure, Trump made $280,000 off it last year. But Trump's other forays into the beverage market have been less successful. Undoubtedly intended to play on his Apprentice catchphrase, Trump Fire was trademarked in 2004, but it does not appear to have ever made it to market. Trump trademarked the name Trump Power at the same time. Both drinks were categorized as "non-alcoholic beverages containing fruit juices... namely, carbonated beverages" on their trademark applications. The only trace remaining of either are the trademark applications that were abandoned in 2006. The same goes for Trump's American Pale Ale, the trademark for which was cancelled in 2007.

3. Trump: The Game
In 1988, Trump teamed up with Milton Bradley to create Trump: The Game. Despite its flashy TV ad, the game sold only 800,000 copies — less than half the 2 million units the company expected to move. When it was discontinued in 1990, Trump chalked the game's dismal sales up to the fact that it might have been "too complicated." The failure apparently didn't deter Hasbro from releasing a re-branded version of the game in 2004 to capitalize on Trump's Apprentice-related popularity. Trump said he expected the Hasbro version of his game to sell more copies than the original, but it too quickly went out of circulation.

4. Trump casinos
Trump has filed for bankruptcy on his Atlantic City properties alone three times. First was the Trump Taj Mahal in 1991 — which was $3 billion in debt after just one year in operation. He was back in bankruptcy court in 2004, and not just for the Trump Taj Mahal but for the Trump Marina and Trump Plaza casinos, which along with a riverboat casino in Indiana had a debt burden of some $1.8 billion. After the bankruptcy, Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts reorganized as Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. Four years later, Trump Entertainment Resorts missed an interest payment on a $53.1 million bond; the company declared bankruptcy, and this time Trump stepped down as its chairman.

5. Trump magazine
Trump launched his eponymous magazine in late 2007, reinventing a publication that had previously been called Trump Style and Trump World. His idea was to "[cash] in on the booming advertising market for yachts and other high-end commodities." The timing, of course, couldn't have been worse for a magazine, particularly one dependent on luxury advertising. It didn't survive the financial crisis, folding by 2009.

6. Trump Mortgage
"I think it's a great time to start a mortgage company," Trump famously predicted to CNBC in April 2006. "The real-estate market is going to be very strong for a long time to come." In reality, the market had already begun deflating at that point and would collapse within a matter of months. Unsurprisingly, Trump Mortgage's business fell far short of its projections, doing less than a third of the $3 billion in business executives predicted it would to do in its first year. At the time, Trump blamed the failure on the executives who run the company. He had tapped E.J. Ridings for the company's CEO position; the company's website boasted Ridings as having been a "top executive of one of Wall Street's most prestigious investment banks," but Money Magazine later found he had just six months of experience as a stockbroker before he went to work a small mortgage company. Trump Mortgage shuttered in September 2007. According to the Washington Post, the company never paid a $298,274 judgement it owed a former employee, nor the $3,555 it owed in unpaid taxes.

7. Trump Steaks
When Trump filed for bankruptcy on his Atlantic City properties for the second of three times, court records showed he owed the Georgia company Buckhead Beef some $715,240. Two years later, in 2007, Trump struck a deal sell Buckhead Beef through the futuristic gadget store the Sharper Image. CEO Jerry Levin would later tell ThinkProgress it was "a bad business idea."

"[W]e literally sold almost no steaks," Levin said. "If we sold $50,000 of steaks grand total, I'd be surprised." The steaks were pulled from shelves after just two months of abysmal sales, but the Trump Steaks commercial has, blessedly, been preserved for posterity.

8. Trump's travel site
Like many of his business ventures, GoTrump.com was a gaudier version of an existing product — the travel booking website Travelocity, in this case. It launched in 2006 to low expectations: Henry Harteveldt of Forrester Research told the Washington Post it was a "vanity site" that wouldn't make much money. He was right; it folded in 2007. Trump never gave up the URL, though — today it directs back to his campaign website.

9. Trump's comms company
Trump registered a trademark for Trumpnet under the category of "corporate telephone communication services" in 1990. Whatever it was going to be, it never got off the ground; the trademark was abandoned in 1992.

10. Trump Tower Tampa
The 52-story Trump Tower in Tampa wasn't conceived of or proposed or drafted up by Donald Trump — he just sold the use of his name to developers of the $300 million condo project for a cool $2 million. They, in turn, collected downpayments from individual buyers drawn in by the Trump mystique. After the project went belly-up in 2008 (it listed two scale models and some office furniture, worth a grand total of $3,500, as its only assets in bankruptcy court) buyers sued Trump for misleading them. He eventually settled, in some cases for as little as $11,115, with plaintiffs who had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

11. Trump University
Also known at the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative, Trump University was a series of wealth-building seminars for which students paid as much as $34,995 for mentorships that would supposedly get them access to Trump's secrets of success. Instead of the hand-picked instructors Trump promised, the seminars were delivered by motivational speakers, often without degrees, and sometimes with criminal records. According to his FEC filings, Trump brought in $11,819 from the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative last year; he's now the subject of two class-action lawsuits in California related to Trump University, and a third suit, for $40 million, brought by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

12. Trump Vodka
Trump Vodka — "Success Distilled," to quote its press materials — appeared in 2006. Trump said at the time, "I fully expect the most called for cocktail in America to be the T&T or the Trump and Tonic." The liquor flopped, maybe in part because of Trump's reputation as a teetotaler didn't inspire a lot of confidence in his taste in hard alcohol. The trademark was abandoned in 2008, and the liquor was out of circulation by 2011.

13. Lost future earnings from calling Mexicans rapists
Trump kissed millions of dollars in future earnings goodbye last summer when he called Mexicans rapists and criminals in his campaign announcement speech. "Yeah, I'm losing some contracts, who cares, people – politically they're weak and they want to be politically correct," he said at the time.

For instance, he was dumped by NBC, the home of Trump's beloved Apprentice franchise. According to his FEC fillings, Trump brought in some $213 million over 14 seasons of the franchise, or about $15.2 million per cycle. He had left the door open to return to Celebrity Apprentice, but NBC eventually announced it was finding a new host.

Then there were Trump's cologne brands, Success by Trump and Empire by Trump, which were sold exclusively by Macy's until both the retailer and the cologne maker dropped the mogul. (Unfortunately for Trump, he didn't have that excuse in 2007, when Donald Trump: The Fragrance — his first foray into the market — was discontinued.)

Likewise, Macy's discontinued Trump's line of menswear, which it had carried for 11 years. According to his financial disclosure, it brought in between $1 million and $5 million — not the kind of money a man who once cashed a 16-cent check would spit at.

And Serta announced it would stop selling its Trump-branded mattress, which, according to Trump's FEC filings, brought in another $1 million and $5 million in royalties every year.

Dude's literally got a fat ego and thinks slapping his name on anything is a good business idea.

Lol I love when almost 50 year old men like Zeus use hash tags to try to look relevant
---

Wow what kind of butthead can't even get a half a billion dollar loan

I have like three of them that I got from Church's chicken
---

Zeus posted...

Really looking forward to 8 years of when the president does anything his motives are automatically suspected to have to do with a business dealing.

Well that's what happens when you eschew presidential tradition and continue to hold a slew of conflicts of interest while in office.

WastelandCowboy posted...

According to Forbes, Trump is currently worth 3.5 million.

lolwut? I think you've drastically underreported there, bud. Even the more conservative estimates are a hundred times higher.


WastelandCowboy posted...

And cut the shit with the "#fakenews" crap. You know better than that.

Says the guy posting something from Rolling Stone, a magazine with journalistic standards so low it made headlines for falsely reporting a rape, punished nobody for that failure, and is currently being sued for said case.

WastelandCowboy posted...

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/donald-trumps-13-biggest-business-failures-20160314

1) lolrollingstone. If you're going to pick a source with zero credibility, you might as well quote somebody's blog.

2) Those aren't all "business deals"

3) All entrepreneurs take risks and not all of them pan out. The people who spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on a business leader's failings are often the same people who have never tried anything at all.

Jen0125 posted...

Lol I love when almost 50 year old men like Zeus use hash tags to try to look relevant

Lol I love when old maids like Jen accuse other people of being old, especially with these awful fishing guesses. #YoureOldYouDontUnderstandUsYoungPeople
---

That thirteen item list was just depressing.
---

Zeus posted...

Lol I love when old maids like Jen accuse other people of being old, especially with these awful fishing guesses. #YoureOldYouDontUnderstandUsYoungPeople

Last I remember, Jen was near my age and I'm almost twenty eight years old.. in what world is that an old maid? lol
---

1. That was a typo. Billion - not million. Step off.

2. Fine. Which sites does the almighty Zeus deem me using as references? Shall I shine your shoes and pick out bad pieces of fruit?

If you couldn't tell, that was sarcasm.

3. I'm damn-well-free to source whatever I want to and you damn-well-know the difference between an overrated hashtag and a website to source.

You're just trying to poke holes in logic because it paints the all-powerful Trump in a negative light.

4. Yes. All entreprenuers take risks and not all of them pan out. But when you start racking up a history of failed ventures like Trump, it looks more like a rap sheet than anything else.

5. You're right. I haven't tried anything. You want to know why? I wasn't born into money. I put myself through college, live with my mom, and work a full-time job and any other side job I can just to pay the bills and put food on the table. I don't have any spare money to use for business ventures.

dude he just plays up the trump angle for attention.

like literally.

i wouldnt bother going so hard.

WastelandCowboy posted...

If you couldn't tell, that was sarcasm.

Well, duh!

WastelandCowboy posted...

3. I'm damn-well-free to source whatever I want to and you damn-well-know the difference between an overrated hashtag and a website to source.

There's certainly nothing stopping you from using wrong, misleading, or purposefully inaccurate sources, but you really shouldn't want to.

WastelandCowboy posted...

You're just trying to poke holes in logic because it paints the all-powerful Trump in a negative light.

If he was really all powerful, we'd have that wall of magical ice already. #BuildThatWall

WastelandCowboy posted...

4. Yes. All entreprenuers take risks and not all of them pan out. But when you start racking up a history of failed ventures like Trump, it looks more like a rap sheet than anything else.

You're aware how many ventures he's had, right? You're highlighting a mere thirteen (and why 13? Because they didn't have more material) out of thousands if not tens of thousands of ventures. Steve Jobs had far fewer irons in the stove and even he had at least 13 misfires. Two examples to immediately jump to mind are iAds and NeXT.

WastelandCowboy posted...

5. You're right. I haven't tried anything. You want to know why? I wasn't born into money. I put myself through college, live with my mom, and work a full-time job and any other side job I can just to pay the bills and put food on the table. I don't have any spare money to use for business ventures.

And those limiting beliefs will guarantee that you'll be living paycheck-to-paycheck until the day you die. Otherwise, I want to remind that most people "born into money" wind up doing exactly dickall with that money and wind up squandering their fortune. 70% of families lose their wealth by the second generation, 90% by the third. Trump defies that trend. Instead of losing money, when he started working at his father's business he gained it and built that fortune up. And that might be why you despise him, because he took advantage of his good fortune to become far more successful.
---

argonautweakend posted...

dude he just plays up the trump angle for attention.

like literally.

i wouldnt bother going so hard.

I remember that Trump Mortgage and Trump Steaks deal. Even back then it made absolutely no damn sense to me.

Lokarin posted...

This is the presidency where everyone else came out looking older.

On point.
---

Jen0125 posted...

Lol I love when almost 50 year old men like Zeus use hash tags to try to look relevant

It's even weirder that despite phrases he's used in the past he constantly refuses to say his age. And it's clearly close to 50.

Why did you start quotations and then not finish them
---

It really is odd how little is known about such an active poster on this board

Either he is hiding some fucked up shit about his life or no one has ever cared to ask
---

Mead posted...

It really is odd how little is known about such an active poster on this board

Either he is hiding some fucked up shit about his life or no one has ever cared to ask

If this wasn't an irrelevant message board I'd think he was a Russian plant given how he gushes extremely hard about Trump but dodges questioning about it
---

Kana posted...

Mead posted...

It really is odd how little is known about such an active poster on this board

Either he is hiding some fucked up shit about his life or no one has ever cared to ask

If this wasn't an irrelevant message board I'd think he was a Russian plant given how he gushes extremely hard about Trump but dodges questioning about it

Trump has paid for stupider things, Kana. :P I think he had a yachting magazine during the mortgage crisis.
---

I'm just saying it's unlikely. The Russian plants usually stick to Twitter and Reddit. No point hanging around on a board that gets maybe a couple hundred visitors tops.
---

TheCyborgNinja posted...

Lokarin posted...

This is the presidency where everyone else came out looking older.

On point.

Literally every presidency ever, tbh.

Cacciato posted...

Jen0125 posted...

Lol I love when almost 50 year old men like Zeus use hash tags to try to look relevant

It's even weirder that despite phrases he's used in the past he constantly refuses to say his age. And it's clearly close to 50.

It's even weirder that you keep using age-baiting tricks when you've previously admitted that even if I said my age you wouldn't believe it. More so, the idea you can age-bait me is laughable. Do you think I haven't been dealing with lame attempts at psychological manipulation since I first started using Gamefaqs?

Mead posted...

It really is odd how little is known about such an active poster on this board

Either he is hiding some fucked up shit about his life or no one has ever cared to ask

Is it, though? Even overlooking that I've probably revealed more here than any other board, I quite honestly know next to nothing about most of your personal lives nor do I have a particular interest in learning the such.

Kana posted...

Mead posted...

It really is odd how little is known about such an active poster on this board

Either he is hiding some fucked up shit about his life or no one has ever cared to ask

If this wasn't an irrelevant message board I'd think he was a Russian plant given how he gushes extremely hard about Trump but dodges questioning about it

Given that I've never "gushed" about Trump let alone "extremely hard," your shitpost is extremely terrible. Granted, this is a forum so far left that if he do so much as to correct a misconception about Trump you have people accusing you of being a Russian agent which, in itself, is a fucking stupid baseless claim largely created by the media to justify their insane narratives and write off detractors.

It's also unbelievably reductive, considering my wide range of non-political interests and the fact I was not only active on this board long before anybody knew a Trump candidacy would be a thing but on Gamefaqs for 13+ years before that.
---

Gotta' have the last word, huh Zeus??

Man, check out the size of the ego on this guy. No wonder he likes Trump.

Great Egos Think Alike.

WastelandCowboy posted...

Gotta' have the last word, huh Zeus??

No, I just hadn't gotten around to this topic yet. I wasn't even aware that the posts were about me because I had yet to check it; in fact, I had suspected (well, assumed) that you were going to protest one of my remarks and, as such, wanted to give it a little while for you to cool your temper before continuing the discussion. Contrary to popular opinion, I'm non-confrontational by nature although I'm both passionate in argument and blunt in my criticisms.
---