TRUMP’S BILLIONAIRE CABINET: HOW THEY HARM WORKING PEOPLE AND TAKE AMERICA’S WEALTH FOR THEMSELVES
CONTEXT: AS PRESIDENT, TRUMP ELEVATES THE WALL STREET ELITE HE CRITICIZED AS A CANDIDATE
Last year, throughout his presidential campaign, Donald Trump harnessed populist anger at the wealthy elite, and presented himself as an outsider who will stand up for working people.
At an August 2015 appearance on CBS, Trump said that “hedge funds guys are getting away with murder,” earning “a hell of a lot of money and not paying taxes.”[1] He slammed the “global special interests rigging the system” against working class Americans.[2]
Candidate Trump criticized excessive CEO compensation, saying “you see these guys [CEOs] making these enormous amounts of money and it’s a total and complete joke.”[3]
Speaking about his tax plan, he claimed “no one will gain more from these policies than low and middle income Americans.”[4]
He vowed to drain the “swamp” of political insiders and financial elite. But as President, Trump has quickly embraced the Wall Street billionaires he criticized as a candidate.
His cabinet appointees and top advisors are drawn heavily from the hedge fund and private equity worlds. They made their fortunes by manipulating the economy against working people and extracting massive wealth from communities.
DONALD TRUMP’S CABINET AND ADVISORS BY THE NUMBERS:
Total net worth of Trump advisors and cabinet members exceeds $63,170,600,000, a sum that exceeds the gross domestic product of TRUMP’S BILLIONAIRE CABINET: How They Harm Working People and Take America’s Wealth for Themselves « Betsy Devos « Hedge Clippers:
