July 6, 2016

Hillary Clinton Takes Aim at Donald Trump’s Atlantic City Failures With a Blistering Speech

“What he did here in Atlantic City is exactly what he will do if he wins in November.”

Zbigniew Bzdak/Chicago Tribune/ZUMA

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Against the backdrop of some of Donald Trump’s most high-profile failures, Hillary Clinton was in Atlantic City, New Jersey, today to deliver a powerful attack on the real estate magnate’s business record and make the case that a Trump presidency would be equally disastrous for the American economy.

“He calls himself the king of debt and he earned that title right here in Atlantic City,” Clinton said in a speech just steps away from the now-closed Trump Plaza Casino and Hotel. “His bad decisions hurt the whole city.”

Marty Rosenberg, a native Atlantic City resident who worked to help build Trump’s Taj Mahal casino, introduced the presumptive Democratic nominee and called out Trump’s “questionable net worth” and self-touted record as a job-maker. Clinton then honed in on Trump’s dealings in the economically distressed city, where four of the presumptive Republican nominee’s casino ventures filed for bankruptcy, saying he destroyed small businesses while reaping millions of dollars in profit.

“He doesn’t default and go bankrupt as a last resort, he does it over and over again on purpose—even though he knows he will leave others empty-handed while he keeps the plane, the helicopter, the penthouse,” Clinton said. “He always rigged it, no matter how his companies performed.”

Ahead of the speech on Wednesday, Trump took to social media to defend his record of hotel and casino management, blaming Democratic lawmakers for Atlantic City’s recent troubles:

Clinton referenced his morning tweets, slamming Trump for taking pride in getting rich while his workers suffered. “What he did here in Atlantic City is exactly what he will do if he wins in November,” she said.

Prior to her remarks on Wednesday, Clinton’s campaign released a scathing video on Trump’s Atlantic City ventures:

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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