Trump Tower fire: Donald Trump’s shithole building

| 2:04 pm EDT April 8, 2018
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I would never spend even so much as one night at a Donald Trump-branded property, for two reasons. The first is that I wouldn’t give a dime of my money to that racist traitor. The second is that Trump is such a notorious cheapskate and con artist, I’ve always figured his buildings weren’t particularly safe. Unfortunately, that premise was proven correct in fatal fashion yesterday when Trump Tower caught on fire.

We still don’t know how the fire started. But we know how it ended: with six firefighters in the hospital and one resident in the morgue. Stunningly, New York Fire Department Commissioner Daniel Nigro then announced to the media that the residential floors of Trump Tower don’t have sprinkler systems. It turns out that’s technically legal, due to the year in which it was constructed. But this is a building where condos are currently listed at anywhere from two million to eighteen million dollars. Does this sound like the kind of building that should be skirting along on the cheap by doing the legal bare minimum when it comes to fire safety?

Trump Tower is supposed to be a luxury building. Now we’re learning it’s a death trap for residents, because Donald Trump is a corner-cutting fraudster. Can you imagine dropping $18 million on a condo and having to actually stop and ask whether the building has a decent fire safety system? That would be like booking a $500-per-night hotel room, and having to stop and ask whether it includes a toilet. At that price range you just assume the basics are covered, which is how Trump takes advantage of people.

Until yesterday, Trump Tower residents probably had no idea that their “luxury” building has been putting their lives in danger by taking advantage of a grandfather clause that was probably crafted with low-income buildings in mind that couldn’t afford a sprinkler retrofit. Now one of them is dead. What does this tell us about the safety of Trump-branded hotels? Are they death traps as well? Trump Tower, like everything else Donald Trump has ever touched, is little more than a gaudy – to use his word – shithole.