Hell hath no fury like a cheated music store owner — and it looks like this could be just the start of a whole new round of small business owners saying they got ripped off by Donald Trump.
In a guest column in The Washington Post published Wednesday, retired store owner J. Michael Diehl of Freehold Music Center tells the story of how his small New Jersey store got swindled by Trump way back in 1989, on a $100,000 order for pianos at the Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City.
"I asked my lawyer if I should ask for payment upfront, and he laughed," Diehl wrote. "'It's Donald Trump!' he told me. 'He’s got lots of money.'"
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Bad move, it turned out:
When I requested payment, the Trump corporation hemmed and hawed. Its executives avoided my calls and crafted excuses. After a couple of months, I got a letter telling me that the casino was short on funds. They would pay 70 percent of what they owed me. There was no negotiating. I didn’t know what to do — I couldn’t afford to sue the Trump corporation, and I needed money to pay my piano suppliers. So I took the $70,000. [J. Michael Diehl, via The Washington Post]
The loss of $30,000 in revenue seriously damaged Diehl, he wrote, in terms of both his personal salary and the capital to further grow his business: "Because of Trump, my store stagnated for a couple of years. It made me feel really bad, like I’d been taken advantage of. I was embarrassed."
"It's a callous way to do business," Diehl concluded of Trump's wheeling and dealing ways. Read his whole account at The Washington Post.
-
‘The worry is far from fanciful’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
How are Americans bracing for the end of SNAP?TODAY'S BIG QUESTION Millions depend on supplemental federal food funds that are set to expire this month, as the government shutdown begins to be acutely felt
-
Book review: ‘Joyride: A Memoir’Feature A journalist’s story of how she chased and accomplished her dreams
-
Warner Bros. explores sale amid Paramount bidsSpeed Read The media giant, home to HBO and DC Studios, has received interest from multiple buying parties
-
Gold tops $4K per ounce, signaling financial uneaseSpeed Read Investors are worried about President Donald Trump’s trade war
-
Electronic Arts to go private in record $55B dealspeed read The video game giant is behind ‘The Sims’ and ‘Madden NFL’
-
New York court tosses Trump's $500M fraud fineSpeed Read A divided appeals court threw out a hefty penalty against President Trump for fraudulently inflating his wealth
-
Trump said to seek government stake in IntelSpeed Read The president and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan reportedly discussed the proposal at a recent meeting
-
US to take 15% cut of AI chip sales to ChinaSpeed Read Nvidia and AMD will pay the Trump administration 15% of their revenue from selling artificial intelligence chips to China
-
NFL gets ESPN stake in deal with DisneySpeed Read The deal gives the NFL a 10% stake in Disney's ESPN sports empire and gives ESPN ownership of NFL Network
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B dealSpeed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
