Corey Lewandowski: Trump Shouldn't Have to Give Up Foreign Business Ties to be President

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump bows his head during a prayer at a town hall with vice presidential candidate Gov. Mike Pence, R-Ind., Monday, July 25, 2016, in Roanoke, Va. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

This is actually a solid question, and one I’ve brought up myself from the beginning of Donald Trump’s sham of a candidacy:

How will his foreign business entanglements mesh with his ability to serve as president, without some conflict of interest? This was the question presented by CNN’s Alisyn Camerota to one of Trump’s loyalists.

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Former Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski on Wednesday slammed a Newsweek article detailing how the Trump Organization’s ties to foreign entities could harm the United States’ national security if he is president.

Lewandowski, who still regularly speaks with Trump and has returned to the Republican nominee’s inner orbit in recent weeks, laced into the article and its author, Kurt Eichenwald, during a panel on CNN’s “New Day,” referring to Eichenwald as previously reporting that “George W. Bush was directly related to 9/11.” (Eichenwald, in fact, reported that Bush had been warned about an Al Qaeda determination to strike the U.S., not that he was “directly involved.”)

Eichenwald brings up several very cogent points, however.

Trump’s business has ties to Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, and other areas where the political climate may become a factor when a U.S. president also has personal business interests in the area. There is that chance that one or the other is going to suffer.

Of course, the vicious niblet, who has been installed with CNN as the Trump defender and chief propagandist, defended against any calls that Trump and his family should step away from the business if the presidency is their new game.

Ivanka Trump, appearing on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” said that the company would not pursue business deals if they created the appearance of a conflict of interest.

“There’s something so much bigger than our business at stake and that’s the future of this country. As a private business we can make decisions that are not in our best interest. We’re not beholden to anyone, to shareholders,” the Trump Organization executive said. “We can say, you know what, we’ll do less deals and not going to do that deal, even though it’s a fine deal, it’s economically reasonable because it could create a conflict of interest and we’ll act incredibly responsibly. My father already said he would put it into a blind trust and it would be run by us. So he’s been very articulate on that fact and outspoken, but this is so much bigger than another deal and we all recognize that.”

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No doubt, gaining the most powerful seat in the country is certainly bigger than any business deal. That’s not the question. The question is how those business interests will affect the way a President Trump deals with foreign powers. Saying that his children will handle the business isn’t exactly a reassurance. Ivanka Trump, a devoted, liberal Democrat, has been instrumental in guiding Trump’s policies, and she tends to lead him directly left.

Camerota continued to press Lewandowski on these entanglements.

Asked whether foreign deals with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, for example, would be allowed to continue, similar to questions about the Clinton Foundation, Lewandowski outright rejected the comparison.

“Do his children continue to run a $10 billion corporation that their father has built? Absolutely they do. Why wouldn’t they?” he asked, to which Camerota responded that they might be “compromised by foreign deals and foreign money coming into it.”

Little Lewandowski is paid to deny and deflect, and this is what was displayed in this interview, but it doesn’t answer those questions.

Just a short browse through history gives example after example of politicians who put their personal finances ahead of their duties as elected officials.

Trump has shown to be ever ready to bend the rules, when it comes to his businesses. Were it not so, he’d probably have a few less lawsuits in his background.

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To think that he’s going to give up his business or make political decisions that may harm the bottom line with his company is folly.

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