Donald Trump enters the Oval Office with a unique kind of baggage for a president. Having never held elective office, he has no legislative record to either double down on or walk back. What Trump does carry is a scorched-earth trail of rancorous rhetoric from his campaign — and a complex legacy of business entanglements from the private sector. The Trump rhetoric will take time to fade, if indeed Trump plans — as he promises — to be more inclusive. But on the business side more immediate resolutions are possible: Trump just decided to settle one of the most conspicuous cases against him, agreeing to pay plaintiffs in the Trump University fraud case $25 million.
Trump had vowed to fight the charge that he put his name on a scheme that defrauded credulous students out of mostly borrowed money — to pay tuition at the now defunct Trump U. But after winning the election Trump changed his tune and took this fight off his crowded plate, opting to look forward instead of back. Doing so Trump avoids having to testify at the trial. His testimony had been scheduled for November 28. In settling the case, Trump issued a typical statement regretting he couldn’t stay in the fight and emerge victorious — a certainty, from his perspective.
The ONLY bad thing about winning the Presidency is that I did not have the time to go through a long but winning trial on Trump U. Too bad!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 19, 2016
