Trump Brand Quotes

The problem with Donald Trump is that he went and designed a brand that is entirely amoral.

People think we're only into big buildings, but iconic houses have always been the real interest. We own 11 of the world's top hotels and all the support services needed to keep them running. Trump properties have to be the best - clubs, hotels, houses.

As I explored Trump's inextricable relationship with his commercial brand, and its implications for the future of politics, I began to see why so many of the attacks on him have failed to stick - and how we can identify ways of resisting him that will be more effective.

I do believe that our ability to jam the Trump brand is somewhat limited. I think we can chip away at it, but ultimately, the way to undermine the Trump brand is a better product in the political marketplace, if you'll forgive the capitalist metaphor.

For the Trump brand name, when we build, we want only the best buildings in the world. We travel a lot to see real estate projects worldwide, and we always study what can be done better. There's no question about it: a Trump Tower has to have the very best quality, amenities and facilities. People want that ultra-luxurious lifestyle.

We're here really to let them know that we're going to run a traditional campaign with them. And when we're the nominee of the Republican Party, you know, it's going to be a Trump brand of the party, but we are Republicans. We're running as team.

Trump's act of construction is not building a building. It is building the meaning of the name "Trump." Because his revenue really comes from selling his name to people who do actually build things. They pay enormous sums of money for the supposed privilege of being associated with the name Trump or the name Ivanka, because of that image construction. That's why it seemed like a good idea for Trump to run for president in the first place.

That is the meaning of the Trump brand - being the boss who is so rich and so powerful he can do whatever he wants. So the way in which he ran for president was to embody that idea as fully as he possibly could with his outrageousness.

I'm not talking about Trump's brand but rather the intimately connected brand called "make America great again" that he created to make all these promises to working Americans - is intensely vulnerable, if there is sustained scrutiny of the kind we've seen about Comey and Russia. He's appointed five Goldman Sachs former executives to his Cabinet, his commerce secretary is renegotiating NAFTA to make it far better for corporations and worse for workers, and they're talking about this right out in the open... I mean, how much news have you seen about that?

I do believe that our ability to jam the Trump brand is somewhat limited. I think we can chip away at it, but ultimately the way to undermine the Trump brand is a better product in the political marketplace, if you'll forgive the capitalist metaphor. I do think that the negative messaging on Trump is severely limited because he is tapping into a very deep, and in many a rightful, desire for deep change, and a feeling that the whole system is so broken and so corrupt that you might as well raise a middle finger as some kind of act of agency.

You've got the Trump water and Trump Steaks and Trump's very so-called dodgy university. And so many of the towers, the Trump towers around the world, the Trump resorts around the world, those are not owned by the Trump Organization.

There's a property in Panama where Trump has collected somewhere around $30 million just from selling his name to this property - it's somewhere between $30 million and $50 million. It would be so easy for a developer to slap on an extra $6 million to a Trump licensing deal and have that be a backdoor bribe. Who are we to say what that is worth? It's so ephemeral. And this is the appeal of selling something as ephemeral as a brand name, is that it can be inflated beyond all reason.

That is the meaning of the Trump brand - being the boss who is so rich and so powerful he can do whatever he wants. So the way in which he ran for president was to embody that idea as fully as he possibly could with his outrageousness. I don't think he actually thought he would win. I think the original idea was purely a marketing idea. It seemed a no-lose situation, because he would get so much free publicity. And this has always been his genius - I shouldn't use the word "genius" when talking about Trump - but he's always understood the value of free publicity.

Trump Tower is no ordinary property: It is the jewel in Donald Trump's brass crown.

So if the meaning of the Trump brand is being the ultimate boss who has the power because he's so rich, the way you undermine that brand is by making him look like a puppet, and by showing that while he's playing gold and admiring his properties, it's actually other people making the key decisions and he doesn't really know what's going on.

I can tell you Donald Trump's products may not be made in America, but Donald Trump was made in America.

The reason why nothing sticks to Trump - or very little sticks to Trump - is that Trump created his brand idea that has to do with being the guy who gets away from it. It's this ultimate power through wealth and this dream that represents in an age of tremendous economic precariousness and constrained options for so many people - that watching Trump be able to do whatever he wants to whoever he wants is this obvious vicarious kind of thrill for a certain demographic.