President Donald Trump said he loves his job at the White House — with one exception.
“I lost massive amounts of money doing this job,” Trump claimedin an interview with The New York Timespublished on Thursday night, saying he wasn’t in it for the money, and calling the financial outlook of the presidency “one of the great losers of all time.”
Despite this, Trump says he loves the job.
“I don’t know if I should love doing it, but I love doing it,” he said.
Trump also appeared to address some of the scrutiny surrounding potential conflicts of interest with his business enterprises, namely his Trump-branded hotels. World leaders and lobbyists havefrequentedthe hotels during his presidency, raising suspicions that they may have done so to try to curry favor with Trump.
“You know, fortunately, I don’t need money,” Trump said. “But they’ll say that somebody from some country stayed at a hotel. And I’ll say, ‘Yeah.’ But I lose, I mean, the numbers are incredible.” Trump did not provide any specifics about much money his companies have earned or lost while he’s been in the White House. Multiple news reportspublished in the last two yearsdescribe portions of his businesseslosing money since he took office.
The former real-estate mogul now earns a base income of $400,000 per year as president, which hedonatesto various organizations, including the Small Business Administration, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and the National Park Service.
Trump’s tax payer-funded income is noticeably smaller than what he was earning as the star of NBC’s reality show “The Apprentice.” Financial documents for the show revealed Trump earned over $30 million in 2005, and $65 million between 2004 to 2007 for revenue and distribution-based royalties, according toYahoo Finance.
