“This was in every way an attempt to convey empty wealth, which it turned out to be a lot emptier than Donald expected or than any of us saw coming,” Wayne Barrett, author of Trump: The Deals and the Downfall, told the Post. “Since then he’s become a wealthy man by selling the name that was based on failed projects. The real things that he built, where are they?”
Indeed, Trump has boasted regularly about his success in taking as much money as possible out of Atlantic City for his own personal benefit while leaving his actual projects in massive debt. “Atlantic City fueled a lot of growth for me,” Trump told the Times. “The money I took out of there was incredible.”