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Trump took a bullet for this country. If he only cared about himself he would have enjoyed retirement at the top of his field with billions of dollars in his bank account.
This seems like the easiest bet in the world. Trump campaigns for other people all the time. He is obviously going to support Vance, even if you believe in a selfish Trump, Vance is trivially his legacy, Vance is in Trump’s best interests.
He has made more billions as a maximally corrupt second-term President than he did as a failed real estate developer or a successful reality TV star.
Up until 2024 it was an extremely negative investment. It was just as likely that Trump was going to go to jail. He used to say during rallies and debates that he could have stayed at home and not run for office, it’s what all his rich friends were doing. And that we need those powerful people to serve the country and they don’t want to because the political fallout is too great.
I don’t think a self-interested Trump theory hangs together. Especially after his 2012 foray into presidential politics it was obvious that running for office would vastly complicate Trump’s life. He did it, like him or not, out of a sense that he had a duty to run. And going through his interviews and statements since the 80s it’s clear he’d been thinking about it for a long, long time.
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maybe he took a bullet because he also saw an opportunity to profit more by being president? These are not necesailty mutually exclusive.
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Being in the public spotlight for Trump is like alcohol to me. He’s addicted to it. So in his self-interest he could never retire because he would hate that life.
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