Why would Trump want the President's job, when it pay is so much lower than what he makes now?

It isn’t power or money, or influence. It is vanity, pure and simple.

Trump is a rich kid who always thought he was worthy of sitting with the smart kids, the talented kids, the kids who earned their way through. Yet he never earned anything on his own.

Trump is from Queens, and it has always chafed him that he has never been accepted by the 400, the real society movers and shakers of Manhattan. He tried by putting his name up everywhere in New York, and all that did was make people shake their heads and laugh at him.

He has no history of service, he has no interest in helping his fellow man. All he wants is for fellow rich people to “respect” him, but they never will.

Ego. Power.

I think he just wants to buttfuck “mooslims” & Mexicans

Ego, pure and simple.

Unless he chooses advisors who arent afraid to tell him the truth, he will be surrounded 24/7 by YES MEN, giving proper obeisance to the office of POTUS, all the way from the well trained household staff to the armed forces generals.

But he won’t make that distinction. He’ll think it’s all because of his magnificent personal traits (even tho there are precious few to be found)

I mean, look how he’s beaming at the thought that Put in likes him. Ha ha.

Reminds me of Sally Field incredulously proclaiming at the Oscars. “You like me. You REALLY like me !”

The other truism regarding money is that once someone has more money than they could possibly spend, the last thing they need is yet more money.

The presidential salary is irrelevant to him.

He clearly has a very exaggerated view of his own significance coupled with a pathological contempt for those ? incapable” of seeing it.

Ego. Status.

I think it is a smart move, when he leave office he can parlay that into more riches like every other US Pres. done when they left office; and get the Secret Service to protect him while doing it.

I don’t think he does want it. I don’t think he wants to be president. I think he just wants to win the contest.

If he got up to the podium and said “Just kidding” and walked off, I don’t believe I’d be surprised.

^ He would not do that, it would not be good for his business.

He’ll still have money pouring in from all of his properties and investments.

I wouldn’t be surprised at any dishonorable thing he might do.

Although I might be surprised that he even thought of them. It’s a mindset I don’t want to understand.

It gives his life a pinnacle meaning. Other than screwing over his employees.

The presidency is the ultimate goal of someone with such an incredibly inflated ego. I think he truly believes he’s the best person for the job.

Ego most of all. Add in power, vanity, and to prove he can do whatever he sets out to do.

He loves feeling superior, powerful, and admired. It’s like half the country is saying to him, “you are king and wonderful and we live you.” What man does want that? It like the best affair he has ever had. He doesn’t need a new woman, he has millions of people wanting him.

I also think he really believes he can help America.

I once saw Trump saying he loves real estate, because everyone can see what you built. He slaps his name on the buildings, makes them taller and taller, and his name is basically up in lights. It’s his legacy. Being a president is the ultimate in going down in history.

Ultimate goal? I wonder. World domination comes to mind, just as in one of those Bond-type international intrigue movies. Here’s a guy whose ego is too big for any containing space, and I don’t see him being impressed by international boundaries.

Except, of course, the one with Mexico.

One more thing. Trump still makes money no matter what work he is doing. He isn’t paid like a typical working guy; he’s the owner. He has investments. His money is making money.

@Jeruba That last one made me laugh.

Has anyone even considered that ego is playing into the motivations behind just about everyone running?

^^Of course.

~The presidency is a gift for a man who has everything.

And in the matter of B-movie villains, you know that if anybody scripted a corny character like Trump as a threat to all humanity, they’d be hooted into oblivion. No one would fall for it even for the length of a movie. We’re not talking about the suspension of disbelief. We’re talking about disbelief being hacked to death by a deranged axe murderer.

I think if he could simply buy the Presidency, then he would—even if it cost billions.

Becoming President is a means of immortalising one’s self.

I’ve heard commentators suggest and even claim that Trump doesn’t really want the job, that he’s more interested in being a TV celebrity. I just don’t think that’s the case at all.

Ego, yes, but also money.
Trump wants to become president, and push through changes in tax law, including eliminating the Estate Tax.
If he does that, his kids will save several billion dollars when Trump dies.

@filmfann, you think he expects to die?

It’s not just an ego thing. Yes the salary is small but imagine the influence pedling and insider trading one could make from within the white house… The sky is the limit.

@Kropotkin That’s the word—immortalize. I tried to describe it in my answer, but didn’t think of the word.

There’s something bizarre about all of this. The man cannot possibly be so great an idiot as to not forese the consequences of the things he says. If Clinton can trip his switch by simply mentioning one of the people he has mauled from a lifetime defined by abusing folks, you gotta wonder how a guy with the self control of a 5 year old makes it through a day. I mean he has kids who apparently love or at least care about him, but the man is probably the most insufferable public figure I can call up from memory. And here he is on the doorstep of the Presidency. I’m just plain confused by all of it.

Imagine him in front of the White House seal. How much of an ego stroke would that be?

On another note, I have friends who are no longer buying Ivanka Trump products. I have a handbag of hers I bought 4 years ago. It’s a nice product but now it’s almost an embarrassment.

@stanleybmanly

I think his kids genuinely both love and respect him. Prior to all this political stuff, I’ve heard interviews with them where they were asked numerous questions about how he was as a father and what it was like growing up filthy rich.

I’ve mentioned this before and that’s at least one thing he did right. Of course Ivanna was also an excellent mother as well as partner. But if one is married to a hard driving businessman who always put business first, neglecting or ignoring his kids, no amount of persuasion or nagging on her part could really change that much.

But that clearly that wasn’t the case. They all said that he had a standing order with his secretary that if any one of them called, to put their call right through. Didn’t matter even if he was in a high power meeting with whomever, a call from one of his kids took precedence.

And this was even in the early days when they were quite young and he was just starting out and didn’t have even a fraction of the clout he would later have. It didn’t matter if some high up mucky muck didn’t like the interruption. Too bad.

I think that something like that sends a powerful message to a young child that they are very loved by their parent and what matters to them matters to him no matter how small and seemingly unimportant to the world. I think that it’s more than just a gesture.

I don’t think it’s either an accident or coincidence that you didn’t see any of the Trump kids being tabloid fodder for their drugging, drinking or sexual promiscuity like others who come to mind (cough cough, Hilton etc.).

They also recounted how they didn’t just get everything they wanted just bought for them. They were expected to work for things so they didn’t grow up like spoiled entitled rich brats.

Interestingly, the oldest, Donny, said that they were “spoiled” with the best education that money could buy. But there were expectations attached that they do their part, study hard and keep up their grades. And apparently they all did.

I suppose they had the money to pay others to write their term papers for them (as Paris Hilton did) but apparently they actually preferred to learn something and took their parents admonitions seriously.

I’m not trying to canonize the guy but I do make a clear distinction between the political and the personal family life. Just because someone is an egomaniacal blowhard politically and business-wise doesn’t mean that he can’t possibly be an above average parent.

I think that he and Ivanna (regardless of their differences and marital problems) were both excellent parents who did their best to put their kids first and raised them to be responsible productive citizens.

As a teacher, I could usually tell in fairly short order which of the kids in my classes were from dysfunctual homes or not. It reflects in their behavior and attitudes.

I know that I and many others are pretty mystified by how such an insufferable public character like him could possibly be a decent parent but the evidence speaks for itself.

You can see the evidence of both good as well as crappy parenting all over the entertainment as well as the political spectrum.

Yeah, I agree that if children emerge into adulthood with a genuine love and appreciation for their parents, said parents unquestionably deserve the bulk of the credit in the achievement. The one area where Trump has shown true self control and discipline is in the suspension of the rules of exclusive self interest when it comes to his wives and children. It is the one positive that persits in the swamp of flaws.

@Buttonstc: I’ve heard the great stories from his kids, too, and maybe they are great people now, who knows. I’m a bit of a cynic and my guesses are as follows: When he told the staff to put through calls from his kids no matter what he was up to, I’m betting he told the kids clearly not to call him for stupid stuff. Don’t call me for stuff like “I can’t find my tennis raquet” or “Is it ok if I go to the movies after school?” Call only for important stuff, close to emergencies. The kids now, as adults, are not going to say anything to disparage Dad because they want Dad to become President. Former staff is not going to say anything to disparage him either, probably because they’ve either had to sign agreements that they won’t, or they don’t want him badmouthing them all over the industry. Current staff of course is not going to say anything negative about things they may have observed concerning his parenting because, for obvious reasons, they want to keep their jobs.

The kids were probably whisked in by nannies to say hi to Dad and then whisked out, or the nannies stand around while Dad plays tennis with the kids or whatever, and then they’re gone with the nannies. The staff probably did not observe much with the kids’ interactions with Dad.

I’m a cynic, as I said, and these are my thoughts.

@jca, I had similar thoughts, but my first was that it’s a way to play one-up with whoever is in your office or your meeting: “Look, my kids are more important than you, my time is more valuable than yours. I can keep you waiting while I take a personal call.” Just a power move, like ostentatiously taking off your wristwatch and placing it face up (or face down) right in front of you on the desk or conference table.

The question implies he loses all the income from his businesses if he wins. I don’t think so. He’ll still make millions on those plus he’ll go down in history as a POTUS. He will meet the movers and shakers of the planet, live in the White House with 24 hr a day servitude and have body guards wherever he goes. He’ll never have to drive a car, fix a meal and may be given an entire new wardrobe. He will garner respect, whether fake or genuine, from the world’s power mongers.

Trump is not in The Social Register. And even if he becomes President, probably won’t ever be in it.

Maybe he thinks that being elected will make him happy, that it will satisfy something, fill an unfillable hole. He sounds like he must be one of the angriest, most unhappy people on earth, perpetually yearning for more—indeed, desperately craving it—and finding that it’s never enough. I’m actually starting to feel kind of sorry for him.

I don’t know about happy ,but it sure would feed his ego.

The thought of Trump floundering around as President is not a happy prospect. But I have this powerful temptation to actually wish him elected just for the privilege of being able to brag about living through the greatest farce to be perpetrated on a country since the fall of Rome. And speaking of Rome, imagine Andrew Dice Clay being elevated to Pope, to understand what I’m talking about. I mean it’s the sort of priceless opportunity for slapstick entertainment that money can’t buy. Just the image of Trump standing before the Great Seal of the United States must redefine gravitas as surely as the man’s rhetoric tortures the concept of statesmanship. And if we must persist through the waning days of America’s greatness, we could do worse than to exit the stage with a tasteless but funny joke. Send in the clown.