-Despite the multitasking involved
with being the president,
Trump still finds a way
to enrich himself and his family financially,
so, today we wanted to check in
on one particularly insidious way
Trump and us his family have been profiting, specifically,
from a policy that was supposed to benefit
the low-income communities Trump promised to help.
This is "The Check In."
[ Cheering and applause ] ♪♪
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When then-candidate Trump was campaigning for the presidency,
back when the words "President Trump" sounded like
one of those silly oxymorons, like jumbo shrimp
or moderate Republican,
[ Laughter ] he was promising to help
America's impoverished communities
and he did it in the only way Donald Trump knows how:
by insulting the very people
he was trying to convince to vote for him.
-Look how much African American communities
have suffered under Democratic control.
To those, I say the following:
What do you have to lose?
Look, what do you have to lose?
You're living in poverty.
Your schools are no good.
You have no jobs.
58% of your youth is unemployed.
[ Laughter ]
What the hell do you have to lose?
[ Laughter ] -Jesus!
He tried to sell his policies
the same way drug dealers try to sell meth.
[ Laughter ] "Look, you're livin' in poverty.
You got no job, why not let crystal
take the wheel for a while?
[ Laughter ] Whaddya got to lose?"
Trump actually instituted a policy which he claimed
was specifically meant to build up
America's abandon cities and towns.
Tucked away in the unpopular GOP tax bill
was a specific tax benefit referred to
as opportunity zones, which sounds like
a weird sex manual from the '70s, you know.
[ Laughter ] "Things were dead in the bed
with Barb and I, but after I found her opportunity zone,
it's a whole other story." [ Laughter ]
Trump's tax bill contained an incentive
that allows investors to delay paying taxes
if they agree to invest money
into an area that desperately needs it,
or, as it's known, an opportunity zone.
In theory, it sounds like a good idea.
Distressed communities need better schools and housing,
and that requires money.
Investors are hesitant
to pour cash into areas that may not turn a profit,
so the administration is offering benefits
for them to take that risk.
But the problem with opportunity zones is
that only one of those promises has been fulfilled:
The one where wealthy people made even more money.
Reports show that the...
And, of course, the wealthiest Americans are benefiting.
The Trump presidency is like an M. Night Shyamalan movie,
if all the twists are super obvious.
[ Laughter ] Donald Trump would've titled "The Sixth Sense"
"Bruce Willis Is Dead."
[ Laughter ] And, of course, some
of those wealthy Americans reaping the benefits
of this program include Trump's own family.
-Jared Kushner is selling his stake in a company
that benefited
from the tax breaks that he personally pushed for.
-The Kushner family already owns real estate on the Jersey shore,
but spent an extra $13 million in Long Branch,
after the area was deemed an opportunity zone.
Kushner has projects in other opportunity zones,
including Jersey City and Maryland,
that could get a boost in value, all raising the question:
Who really profits?
-Jared Kushner?! What a coincidence
that the president's son-in-law, who works in the White House,
would benefit financially.
I guess he's
in an opportunity zone. [ Laughter ]
So, Jared Kushner, the moray eel who was kissed a princess
and turned halfway into a prince,
[ Laughter and applause ] is making a killing.
So, how? How, exactly,
are the wealthy, like Kushner, benefiting from this plan?
Well, the vague language of the law
leaves it up to investors to decide what kind of projects
and developments they wanna build.
There's nothing that forces them
to actually help low-income communities.
On top of that, the qualifications
for what defines an opportunity zone
are extremely broad,
which defeats the very purpose of this program.
-Clear pattern, so far, is if you're an investor
and you're gonna invest in a zone,
are you going to do it in a developed city
that's already gentrified or are you gonna do it
in a truly distressed part of the country,
that is going to be a risk?
So, a lot of the money is going to be
toward the sure investment,
which, in this case, we're already seeing is
in the highly developed, already expensive,
high-employment parts of the country.
-Some opportunity zones have also been criticized
for not being economically distressed.
Almost 200 of the zones qualified simply
by being next to low-income areas.
-So the whole concept of opportunity zones
sounds great, but it is actually terrible.
It's basically R. Kelly.
Sounds great.
[ Laughter ] Is actually terrible.
[ Applause ] And this is reportedly --
[ Cheering and applause ]
This is reportedly becoming the norm for this program.
According to The New York Times,
recent opportunity zone projects include...
[ Laughter ] A spa for pets
is not the kind of thing that helps America's inner cities.
That is not what they were crying out for.
"I'm having trouble finding work and paying rent,
but the real issue is my cat desperately needs a soft scrub."
[ Laughter ] And, because the tax benefit
is lining the pockets of the wealthy,
instead of helping low-income areas,
a government agency is now investigating the program
and Kushner's role in it.
-An internal watchdog group with the Treasury Department
is taking a look into the way the Trump administration
is rolling out opportunity zones.
-The president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner,
recently announced he was soliciting investments
in these opportunity zones, which prompted
the Treasury Department's inspector general
to open an inquiry into the program.
-You could do good things with this money,
if that was your mission.
Or, you could just make high-end stuff and get a tax break,
and that's what you're seeing with Kushner
and I'm glad the IG is gonna look into it.
Hopefully, Trump doesn't try to squash that.
-I got a feeling that Trump is gonna try and squash that.
[ Laughter ] If there's one thing
Trump is good at, it's squashing,
whether it's investigations, testimony,
or himself into a golf cart.
[ Laughter ] I --
"I don't think you're gonna fit, sir."
[as Trump] No, I can squash.
[ Laughter ] So, despite Trump's promises,
opportunity zones ended up benefiting the rich,
instead of helping the poor, so, to answer Trump's
original question, these communities have
everything to lose, if he remains in office.
This has been "The Check In."
[ Cheering and applause ] ♪♪
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