Meet Trump’s Filthy Rich Jewish Advisers
politico.com
The real estate magnates on his economic team tell us a lot about the way he really thinks.
By Katherine Clarke and Will Parker | August 10, 2016
When you’re looking for advice on how to manage the world’s largest economy, why not get it from a fellow reality TV star?
That’s what Donald Trump has done. Some voters might know Howard Lorber, who’s a member of Trump’s economic advisory team, for his occasional appearances on “Million Dollar Listing New York,” the Bravo reality show that charts the careers and personal flailings of three top real estate brokers in New York. On the show, he appears as boss and mentor of two of the agents.
In actual reality, Lorber is a fellow New York real estate magnate who’s known Trump for 30 years and, like him, enjoys the highest of the high life. He lives at the tony Sherry Netherland building at the foot of Central Park and recently forked out more than $15 million for an additional apartment at 432 Park Avenue in Manhattan, the tallest residential tower in the Western Hemisphere. He also owns homes in Southampton and on Fisher Island in Florida.
As of last Friday, Lorber is also a key figure in Trump’s campaign, one of the13 members of his new economic advisory team. When the group was announced, it immediately came under fire for a lack of diversity in gender and economic status: The team was all-male and mostly white and wealthy businessmen. In addition to real-estate titans, the appointees include several prominent hedge-fund managers and bankers. But the group also drew questions about just who these figures were. They weren’t drawn from the pool of well-known economic thinkers from previous GOP administrations whom typical candidates would tap for such a job. By many accounts, the most recognizable name on the list was John Paulson, the economist and hedge fund titan who made billions betting against U.S. subprime mortgages in the financial crisis of 2007. Paulson, a media-shy Wall Streeter, made $15 billion in 2007 alone by betting against the real estate market, a bet that led to what’s been widely been described at the greatest trade of all time. The list also includes Andy Beal, a fellow billionaire investor and another long-time Trump acquaintance who spends a lot of time playing professional poker.
“It’s typical if you’re going to build a coherent economic policy you need to have a wide group of economic advisers,” says Rob Scott of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. “These people are generally economists who come out of the top 10 or 15 schools, or the leading think tanks. … He’s got a bunch of real estate guys and a poker player.”
To understand whom Trump has appointed, and whom he’s getting his advice from, it’s helpful to start with the real-estate moguls on Trump’s team who know him the best and, perhaps, have his ear the most. All of them have intersected with Trump in the real life business world—Trump at one point described Lorber as his best friend—and one is even the co-owner of several of Trump’s most-prized real estate assets.
Lorber is CEO of Vector Group, the parent of the Liggett Group, a tobacco company, and of New Valley, a real estate-focused investment firm that’s poured money into several of New York City’s most expensive condo projects and owns a majority stake in Douglas Elliman, one of the biggest real estate brokerages in the country. Like Trump, Lorber has a lot of friends in high places. He was one of a select few moneymen invited to celebrate Carl Icahn’s 80th birthday over dinner at Mastro’s Steakhouse in midtown Manhattan earlier this year. That group reportedly also included Apollo Global Management’s Leon Black and Jefferies CEO Rich Handler. Lorber took home $42.5 million in total pay in 2015, according to regulatory filings, making him the highest paid CEO in South Florida. He also heads the Nathan’s Famous hot dog chain. And like his famous advisee, he’s not shy about his wealth.
Also like Donald, Lorber likes to combine uber-ritzy living with a little slumming—especially when it comes to consuming fast food. “When I bought my Rolls-Royce, the first thing I did was go to a McDonald's drive thru," Lorber said at an industry event in March.
But in contrast to Trump—whose rich father gave him a big liftoff in real estate—Lorber says his self-made wealth doesn’t keep him from understanding the needs of the middle class. “Maybe if you’re born with it, it does,” he told The Real Deal. “If you’ve had to work for it like most of these guys, it helps you understand.”
In addition to Lorber, the real estate players include Thomas Barrack Jr. and Steven Roth. Here is a brief introduction to their world.
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