Technology

Here’s Donald Trump Losing It on Twitter After the New York Attorney General Sued His Ridiculous Faux University

by

Two years ago, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office started investigating a number of for-profit colleges, suspecting they were exaggerating the ability of their graduates to get jobs, downplaying the cost of attendance, and over-hyping the generally crappy quality of their instruction. Last week, the A.G.’s office got a $10.25 million settlement out of one of those schools, an august learning institution called Career Education Corporation. We thought the next target on the AG’s list would likely be Trump University, now called Trump Entrepreneur Initiative, which is where you go to learn the secrets of business from a man who’s filed for bankruptcy four times.

See also: Illinois For-Profit College Pays $10.25 Million Settlement to New York Attorney General To Settle Charges of Scamminess. Will Trump University Be Next?

Sure enough, on Saturday, Schneiderman sued Trump, Trump University, and the school’s former president, Michael Sexton, for $40 million, accusing them of engaging in “persistent fraudulent, illegal and deceptive conduct” while operating the online-only “school.” (Trump University changed its name to Trump Entrepreneur Initiative after the state’s Education Department told them the word “university” was extremely misleading.)

“Between 2005 through 2011, Trump University operated as an unlicensed educational institute that promised to teach Donald Trump’s real estate investing techniques to consumers nationwide,” the AG’s press release read, “but instead misled consumers into paying for a series of expensive courses that did not deliver on their promises.” The only thing Trump students got a lesson in, Schneiderman quipped, was “bait-and-switch.” He also accused Trump of having “used his celebrity status and personally appeared in commercials making false promises to convince people to spend tens of thousands of dollars they couldn’t afford for lessons they never got.”

The AG also said his investigation revealed that Trump “did not handpick even a single instructor at these seminars and had little or no role in developing any of the Trump University curricula, or seminar content.” He also went after Trump for the whole “university” thing, saying they illegally used that term “even though they lacked the charter necessary under New York law to call themselves a University. They were also unlicensed under New York State Education Law, evading an array of legal protections designed to protect New Yorkers from fraud.”

Trump naturally reacted to the news with the kind of calm, sure-handed wisdom that’s made him such a leader in business. Just kidding. While failing to respond to requests for comment from multiple news outlets, he threw an absolute shit-fit on Twitter, calling Schneiderman a “lightweight” and “very stupid & ineffective,” and accusing him of soliciting Trump for political donations during the investigation. He also implied that it was no coincidence that Schneiderman “met with President Obama in Syracuse on Thursday” before suing him. In between, he re-tweeted messages from his supporters (“your an awesome person”).

Trump also tweeted indignantly that Schneiderman hadn’t mention the “98 percent approval rating” from former Trump University students. Then he unleashed upon the world 98percentapproval.com, a bare-bones website dedicated to extremely convincing testimonials from former students: “This opened my eyes to real estate opportunities.”

After two solid hours of outraged tweeting, Trump followed up this morning with an announcement that he’d be appearing today on Fox and Friends. We won’t be watching, but only because we’d like to maintain our will to live. Instead, here’s his whole meltdown, for posterity. And because it’s hilarious.

Highlights