Which foreign destination will be Trump’s pick for his Post-POTUS Escape?
And 5 other items on Trump’s travel checklist
Typically ex-Presidents attend their successors’ inauguration and then take a trip out of town. W .Bush went back to his Texas ranch. Obama hit Hawaii, Virgin Islands and Tuscany, Italy.
Trump’s going to be a fugitive on the run.
He will face criminal charges in New York state, if only for tax fraud. Neither Pence nor Biden can pardon anyone for breaking state law.
Then there’s the criminal and civil liability that he’ll face for fomenting the Coup d’ Dumb of January 6, 2021. Leaders of failed insurrections generally skip town pretty quickly.
So, Trump cannot stay in Florida or any where else in the US. He has to leave or else risk ending up in prison as he awaits trail and completes his sentence.
And his US real estate interests are going to implode. The Trump brand has tanked among high-net-worth customers over the last four years. There’s the recent corporate backlash against Trump’s insurrection. Even the last bank that would lend to him, Deutsche Bank, has finally pulled the plug.
Perhaps most painful to Trump’s ego if not wallet, the PGA made it clear that no more golf championships will happen on Trump courses. This is key. If he’s no longer here, he’s less likely to see, hear or experience the humiliation.
Of course, when anyone plans a big international trip, they put together a travel checklist. Here’s a good guess of what Trump has for his:
1) Pick a destination
Most of us would pick an overseas vacation destination in countries that have extradition treaties. London. Paris. Rome. Tokyo. Sydney.
But those appealing destinations won’t work for Trump, as soon he will just be arrested by local authorities and shipped back to NY for trial. That means no democracy with rule-of-law justice systems including extradition.
There are plenty of countries without extradition treaties, but many lack 5-star hotels and golf courses. For example, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Brunei, Bangladesh and Kazakhstan.
The overlap of “no extradition” and “luxury hotels” basically boils down to China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates.
China has a government that Trump has bashed repeatedly. And Trump train followers might jump ship if he suddenly went sinophile.
The Saudis and UAE would likely welcome him with open arms, as would Putin. Wealthy investors and real estate buyers in those countries would probably love to give money to a former President of the United States.
I imagine him and Melania jetting back-and-forth between Moscow and Riyadh.
2) Set your travel dates
When you and I schedule our travel dates, we have to think about two dates: when to depart and when to return.
Trump only has to think “one-way” because he won’t be returning.
And since he does not work (and arguably never has), he does not have worry about balancing personal desires and job obligations.
He only needs to worry about one thing: his estimated date of arrest.
If he wants to play it really safe, he’ll leave before or soon after Inauguration Day. But perhaps he’s been advised that he has a few weeks or even a few months while the wheels of justice spit-out an arrest warrant for him.
3) Make travel reservations
When my family travels overseas, our options are “United vs. Delta” airline and “Economy vs. “Economy Plus” seating.
The wealthy have more options. First class. Private plane. Private yacht. Trump even has Air Force One as a tax-payer funded option.
But these options narrow over time. Air Force One will only work for the next few days before Biden is inaugurated. Airports and air-space are highly regulated, so he can’t use those if a warrant is out on him. If he waits too long, his only option might be a private yacht big enough to cross the Atlantic.
4) Get foreign currency or travelers checks
Years ago I had this before departure. Now I just use my US bank’s ATM card to withdraw local currency once I land in the foreign airport.
But Trump’s US bank accounts might be frozen. And even if he’s not as rich as he claims, he has more wealth than can be taken out of an ATM.
More troubling, he has to worry about assets in the US being confiscated to cover criminal fines and civil lawsuits.
Trump’s accountants and lawyers are already making plans to liquidate most if not all assets in the US so the sales proceeds can be transferred to a bank in Russia, Switzerland or the Cayman Islands. That’s way more work than getting travelers checks.
5) Pack your camera
If you’re just a tourist, a simple camera or even smartphone is key to capture memories.
But I doubt Trump does that. He’s more likely to bring a camera man and production crew so that he can launch TrumpTV from overseas. Even if only 25% of his 70 million supporters voters pay $6/month to see, read and hear Trump’s rants, he can rake in over a billion bucks a year.
But the backlash to the January 6, 2021 insurrection taught Trump some lessons about relying on Twitter, Facebook or even Amazon servers. Putin’s buddies can set TrumpTV up with Moscow-based servers and software. He could leverage the technology powering VK, which is Russian’s version of Facebook with purported ties to the Kremlin.
6) Leave notes for your co-workers and neighbors
We working stiffs only have to set our email auto-replies, ask our neighbors to check on the mail, and let the (grand)parents know that we can’t phone them easily for a few weeks.
Trump’s got a lot more to do (poor guy).
First, he has to hire all the legal, tax and business advisors needed to plan for when NY if not also federal prosecutors come after him and The Trump Organization.
Second, he’s got to get the TrumpTV production crew and promotional engine up and running. (Luckily those costs can be covered by his private political action committee which raised hundreds of millions of dollars since he lost the election.)
Third, Trump needs to figure out the best way(s) to spin his fugitive escape. I’m guessing he’ll find a mix of martyrdom whining and Terminator-like threats that do not make logical sense but will resonate with his followers:
“I had to escape the worst witch hunt in history…”
“QAnon was right…Democrat cannibals wanted to kill and eat me and my family”
“Biden’s socialist regime is no place to run my business…Russia is where capitalism lives free”
“Saudi Arabia is more American than America now…come to my new hotel and golf course opening next year!”
“I’ll be back before 2024….exonerated before the election with the help of the best lawyers ever!”
So instead of us spending 5 minutes on auto-replies or little notes, Trump will spend hours and days fine-tuning his lies. But that’s not the biggest difference between our typical overseas vacation and Trump’s flight from justice.
The biggest difference is that he will continue to phone in.
Sure, you might phone in once or twice during your vacation to help answer an urgent question from work.
But every single day, probably 4–5 times a day, Trump will continue to phone into the US to spew lies and hatred. He will leverage TrumpTV, Parler, traditional corners of the dark web, along with interviews with many right-wing media outlets. Yes, we will see him on Fox, phoning in from Moscow or the Middle East.
So don’t cheer too much when Trump leaves the country for good. He can and likely will still be a cancer that rots the brains of 30% of the US population. Even once out of the White House and the country, Trump will remain a threat to America and its democracy.
