M.L. Nestel joined Raw Story in 2023. An award-winning writer and editor, his work has been published in New York Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine and The Guardian, among other titles. He also produces and writes for true-crime genre TV shows. Prior to that, he served on the Newsweek masthead as a senior writer, wrote as a correspondent at ABC News and held the titles of West Coast bureau chief and senior writer at The Daily Beast. Priors also include working as senior national correspondent at The Daily Mail and investigative reporter at all three NYC tabloids: The New York Post,The New York Daily News and Newsday. He traveled around the country as a national correspondent at The Daily. M.L. published hundreds of stories about underground music and cinema — most notably as a critic for Box Office Magazine and the New York editor at Soma Magazine. He also headed development at Fountainhead Films. M.L. splits his time between Los Angeles and New York.
Trump's financial ship is taking on a lot of water.
New York Times investigative reporter Susanne Craig appeared on MSNBC with host Ali Velshi and explained that the 45th president tipped his hand on his financial liquidity when the Trump Organization sold off its Trump International Hotel in D.C. in May of 2022.
"It was a very interesting moment, I thought when he sold the Old Post Office hotel a few years ago down in Washington," she said. "It's not often that you see a developer sell their most recent project."
The $375 million sale back in May 2022 secured about $100 million profit for what was called at the time a "record-breaking sale," but covered "only the operation of the hotel, which is housed in a building leased from the federal government," according to the New York Times. (The House Oversight Committee determined the hotel down the road from the White House bled more than $70 million in losses.)
"We took a dilapidated and underutilized government building and transformed it into one of the most iconic hotels in the world. We are incredibly proud of what we accomplished," Eric Trump, one of the former president's adult sons, said in a statement.
But Craig suspects the former president was hard up for cash or they would have preserved the property as part of the company's collection.
"The Trump Organization was incredibly proud of it," she said. "That that sale netted him $100 some million dollars. So, it upped his cash position, but it suggested to me when they sold it that they needed cash."
The 45th president is facing hundreds of millions of dollars in damages for the civil fraud trial in New York where he and his company have been accused of committing rampant fraud for years to secure favorable loans and deals.
Upon learning the state AG prosecutors were seeking $370 million, Trump shot back: “They should pay me.”
