WaPo: Trump Organization Faces Looming Debt Crisis

The Washington Post reports:

At President Trump’s hotel in Chicago, the most recent board meeting began with bad news. This year’s numbers were awful. Revenue had plunged. The hotel was just 24 percent occupied. And worse: The hotel expected next year to be bad, too. In fact, the hotel’s managing director, Gabriel Constantin, said the coronavirus pandemic had hurt the Trump hotel so deeply — reducing business travel and forcing the cancellation of Chicago conferences — that it might be nine years before their business returned to 2019 levels.

As Trump fights to save his political career, another key part of his life — his business — is also under growing stress. In the next four years, Trump faces payment deadlines for more than $400 million in loans — just as the pandemic robs his businesses of customers and income, according to a Washington Post analysis of Trump’s finances. The bills coming due include loans on his Chicago hotel, his D.C. hotel and his Doral resort.

As the Post observes, Trump’s debts provide yet another potential conflict of interest as his agencies regulate the banks that hold the notes. Read the full article.