Talk:Trump University

Others associated with creation of Trump University

There are two other names who are associated with the creation of Trump Universty. Jonathan Spitalny was given a lot of praise by Trump for the university creation, yet has received little mention. The New York Post covered his connection;

Extended content

"When Donald Trump unveiled his plans for Trump University,he did something that The Donald seldom does – he showered praise for the venture on a little-known advisor,Jonathan Spitalny. The low-key Spitalny,a senior managing director at Bear Stearns,counts two billionaires among his client list – Trump and the 85-year-old liquor baron Sidney Frank. If you ask The Donald or Frank about Spitalny,the talk turns not to hedge funds or investments but first and foremost to golf.”He ‘s a great athlete and a good golfer,he ‘s almost as good a golfer as me,” said Trump. Michael Sexton,the president of Trump U.,is a little more specific:”He ‘s a relationship builder and very, very good at it,” said Sexton.And he says that Spitalny “was really instrumental in engineering the deal and creating Trump University.” Frank is the man who created a liquor empire and recently sold Grey Goose to Bacardi for $2.4 billion.Spitalny was a family friend who at first took advice from Frank on everything from golf to his career. “I knew his parents,and I ‘ve been advising him on golf since he was 7 years old,” said Frank.Today,it ‘s payback time. When pressed,Frank concedes that Spitalny is personally handling $20 million in investments and advising on many other deals.”I think he ‘s good at picking stocks,” said Frank. “Bear Stearns brings me a lot of ideas,and most of them come through Jon,” he said. While Frank doesn ‘t take all of his suggestions – he rejected one of Spitalny ‘s ideas to buy a beer company – he has followed up on some high-profile investment concepts,such as getting into the publishing business. While reading the Robb Report recently,Frank wondered whether there was a way to do something in upscale travel magazines,using lists and shorter articles.And early this year,with Spitalny as a trusted adviser,Frank began starting a mini-magazine empire by buying two travel magazines: Travel Savvy,purchased for $800,000,and Business Traveler,purchased for $500,000. Steve Schragis,now the publishing director at Frank Media, recalled when he was running programming for The Learning Annex and Trump was speaking to a sellout crowd.When the limo pulled up outside,one of the people who jumped out of the back was Spitalny. While Trump spoke,Spitalny outlined Frank ‘s magazine plans to Schragis,a one-time owner of Spy magazine in the 80s and mid-90s who had recently tried to buy New York magazine. Within weeks,Schragis was on board at Frank Media.Of course,Spitalny himself,in keeping with the low-key image mandated by Bear Stearns,declined to be inter-viewed on his secret for success.But,in addition to his financial savvy – and relationship building on the links – he alsotakes time to enjoy the riches of his success. Last Thursday,he celebrated his 40th birthday at L ‘Escale, the posh dining establishment on Long Island Sound in Greenwich,Conn.Among the revelers was Ahmad Rashad, the sportscaster and Michael Jordan pal who was once a star wide receiver for the Minnesota Vikings. References

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Trump University/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Jaguar (talk · contribs) 18:37, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi, I will be reviewing this against the GA criteria as part of a GAN sweep. I'll leave some comments soon. JAGUAR  18:37, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Disambiguations: No links found.

Linkrot: No linkrot found in this article.

Checking against the GA criteria

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, no copyvios, spelling and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   " (A separate organization, Trump Institute, was licensed by Trump University but not owned by the Trump Organization.)" - no need for this to be in brackets

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   No original research found.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   NPOV

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

I've done some minor cleaning up if that's OK. Overall this is well written, comprehensive and all of the sources check out. It meets every aspect of the criteria so I'll pass it. JAGUAR  16:31, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Post-review

Tacking on to the end of the review, some passing thoughts:

• There are some gaps in coverage here, specifically in what the classes contained (?!?) and also in the glue between sentences—
• The dateline format is really hard to follow (On Dec 13, 2016, X, etc.) Either remove the dates or put it in a relative format (the next month). Makes for better prose.
• The lede should better cover what the classes contained too, as right now it reads like a coat rack for discussing the lawsuits. It might be true that it's primarily known for the lawsuits now, but the topic itself still needs due weight.
• Reduce the one-sentence paragraphs, pull similar content together for meaningful flow

 czar 18:48, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

bias in see also section

The inclusion of links to two "fake universities", that were created in law enforcement operations to expose student visa fraud seem irrelevant and give the impression of political bias. The articles are not related in any way other than coincidentally having the name "university" and not being actual universities. The point that Trump University is not a university is well understood from the article; including those links in the see also section may appear to be an attempt to mock Trump. Arecaceæ2011 (talk) 03:20, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm going to remove the links, hopefully that is not controversial. If it is, feel free to discuss here.Arecaceæ2011 (talk) 03:21, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

The inclusion of a link to the article on unaccredited higher ed institutions seems also pointed and irrelevant. The subject matter of this article is not only unaccredited, it's not a an institution of higher ed; it was a real estate seminar course. I'm also removing that link and the one to Reagan National.Arecaceæ2011 (talk) 03:26, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Trump payments beyond Bondi, Abbott

If anyone wants to update, I did a detailed analysis of Trump money connected with TrumpU. There was much more than mentioned here, and Ivanka helped. Election Databases Expose Extent of Trump-Bondi Connection, Updated With More Details That may not be WP:RS, but is based on election donation records (linked) and summarized in Fig 2 - Bondigate FOLLOW THE MONEY

When Trump learned in July 2013 that the NY AG suit was going forward, he started sending money to people he'd never supported before: Justices, DA, AG Bondi, TX Governor Abbott, IA Governor Branstad. Ivanka sent $500 to Bondi's "Bondi for AG", clearly a few days before Trump cut the $25K check to AJFA, which was an ECO. Bondi also had a PAC, Justice for All, and when AJFA later shut down, it transferred money to JFA, which seemed dubious - this is all explained in Huffpost article. Table 1 at end of article lists relevant donations. Trump & IVanka also donated to CA AG Kamala Harris 2011, 2013, 2014, which seemed related to the CA class action lawsuits. She donated the money to charity.

Anyway, as it is the article understates the extent to which Trump+Ivanka were spending money on new-to-them people in states that potentially might have lawsuits. JohnMashey (talk) 01:29, 5 September 2022 (UTC)