‘President Trump’ May Wind Up Only Being President of a TV Network
Jared Kushner, Donald Trump‘s son-in-law, is in talks with an investment banker who has a track record of advising on multi-billion dollar media deals, to create a Trump TV network startup, according to a report in Monday’s Financial Times.
For much of Trump’s campaign many have wondered if his goal all along was to create a right-wing media company, which Trump has denied.
But with the addition of Aryeh Bourkoff, who heads LionTree investment bank, and who advised on Charter Communications’ takeover of Time Warner Cable earlier this year in a deal worth $78 billion, the parts are all coming in to place.
Trump is a media savvy businessman expert at getting rich by using other people’s money. His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, runs a conservative New York tabloid, The Observer. His campaign CEO was the publisher of Breitbart, a far right wing website that attracts the alt-right and Tea Party extremists. Former Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, while contractually banned from working for another network, is advising Trump’s presidential campaign. And, as the Financial Times notes, Trump’s top “cheerleader” at Fox News, Sean Hannity, could leave the network to work for Trump.
The Times also notes that the conversation between Kushner and Bourkoff “was brief and has not progressed since,” but “Mr Bourkoff is a friend of Mr Kushner, who is married to Mr Trump’s daughter Ivanka. The two have worked together in the past.”Â
It’s unclear what Trump’s plans are post-election, but his brand has become toxic for real estate. Reports are his brand new $212 million Washington, D.C. hotel is having trouble booking rooms and convention space, bookings at Trump’s hotels during the first half of the year were down 59 percent, and even Trump’s children have done the unthinkable: started a real estate hotels project that intentionally is not using Trump’s name. Instead, it will be called Scion.
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Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license