Trump says he didn’t use banks because he didn't ‘need their money’
President Trump took to Twitter Thursday to refute reports that few banks wanted to lend him money, labeling Deutsche Bank, an institution that did lend to him, “maligned.”
“The Fake News Media loves the narrative that I didn’t use many banks because the banks didn’t like me," the president tweeted. "No, I didn’t use many banks because I didn’t (don’t) need their money (old fashioned, isn’t it?). If I did, it would have been very easy for me to get.”
He followed that sentiment with another tweet.
“And remember, a bank that I did use years ago, the now badly written about and maligned Deutsche Bank, was then one of the largest and most prestigious banks in the world! They wanted my business, and so did many others!” he wrote.
On Sunday, Germany’s struggling Deutsche Bank announced it would cut 18,000 jobs by 2022, downsizing its volatile investment banking division. The bank also said it will implement a cost reduction program to reduce costs to $19 billion in 2022, targeting a cost-income ratio of 70 percent in that year, and expects the move to cost the company $8.3 billion. The bank did not say where the cuts would fall.
Many of its investment banking activities are carried out in New York and London.
Deutsche Bank is the focal point of separate congressional investigations, focusing on its relationship with Trump, his family and his businesses.
The bank was one of the few willing to lend to Trump after a series of corporate bankruptcies and defaults starting in the early 1990s. Trump has sued the bank to stop the subpoenas, but a judge in May ruled against the president.
In May, Trump spoke about the use of banks in a series of tweets following a New York Times report claiming Deutsche Bank employees had previously flagged potentially suspicious transactions by entities controlled by the president and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and recommended a report to the U.S. agency that investigates federal financial crimes.
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“The Failing New York Times (it will pass away when I leave office in 6 years), and others of the Fake News Media, keep writing phony stories about how I didn’t use many banks because they didn’t want to do business with me. WRONG! It is because I didn’t need money,” Trump said in a series of tweets. “Very old fashioned, but true. When you don’t need or want money, you don’t need or want banks.”
In that series of tweets, Trump said Deutsche Bank had been “very good and highly professional to deal with.”
FOX Business Brittany De Lea, Katherine Lam and The Associated Press contributed to this report.