Donald Trump may have salivated over the idea of a housing crash to
make some easy cash, but when the market tanked he tried to use it to
get off the hook for a major debt.
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee sued Deutsche Bank to try to
get out of $40 million in personal loans he'd taken out to build Trump
International Hotel & Tower in Chicago in 2008, arguing the
financial collapse was an unexpected "force majeure," or act of God,
that negated his duties to repay the loan.
The lawsuit came just two years after Trump suggested he was rooting
for a real estate collapse so he could swoop in and buy up property at a
steep discount.
"I sort of hope that happens because then people like me would go in
and buy. You know if you're in a good cash position, which I'm in a good
cash position today, then people like me would go in and buy like
crazy," he said in a recording unearthed by CNN earlier this week. "If
there is a bubble burst, as they call it, you know you could make a lot
of money."
