(If you ever want to lose a fortune, invest in a golf course.) Those were just the cover stories. Trump’s business model was never real estate development or hotel management. It has conferred on him a form of limited immunity (the presidency is the greatest offshore trust in the world?) and has given him a place to hide that is beyond the reach of those angry investors who stumped up good money after bad to fund golf courses or (now empty) office space.

Winning the presidency was almost beside the point. Perhaps by getting into the presidential race he figured he could buy himself some time, find some new sources of cash, kite some checks or accounts receivable, or otherwise deflect the attention of those hard on his heels? Trump ran for the presidency to keep an array of creditors (from the Russians and Saudis to Deutsche Bank down to all those plumbers he refused to pay in Atlantic City) from foreclosing on Trump’s towers of debts. I never thought Trump ran for president in 2016 because he wanted to lower the cost of prescription drugs for “our seniors,” or because he wanted to start an itinerant ministry dedicated to criminal justice for ex-convicts, or institute school choice.