Fact Check: Joseph Gordon-Levitt Claims Trump Is Not a ‘Self-Made Businessman’

CLAIM: Joseph Gordon-Levitt claimed former President Donald Trump is not a “self-made” or honest businessman, but a “conman.”

VERDICT: Partly False.

While Trump did inherit some money and received loans from his father as he was starting out, he built his business into what it is today.

Trump’s father, Fred Trump owned a real estate business, Trump Management, which is now known as The Trump Organization.

The Week reported that Trump “left Brooklyn and Queens” and went out to try to “make it big in the more glamorous environs of Manhattan.” The former president ended up taking a $1 million loan from his dad, along with over “$100 million in bank loans” that his father had helped him with, according to the outlet.

A report from the Wall Street Journal from September 2016 found that a casino license disclosure from 1985 showed Trump had taken out several loans “from his father and his father’s properties” at the beginning of his career:

The document, a casino-license disclosure in 1985 by then-wife Ivana Trump, shows Mr. Trump taking out numerous loans from his father and his father’s properties near the start of his career in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

At the time of the disclosure, Mr. Trump owed his father and his father’s business about $14 million, according to the document.

In 1983, Trump Tower in Manhattan officially opened and is “one of the most iconic buildings in the world” and serves as the headquarters for The Trump Organization, according to the organization’s website.

The Week noted that Trump also “branched out into golf courses, luxury resorts, and dozens of other industries.”

Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt claimed during a live call hosted by the group, “White Dudes for Harris” that Trump is not a “self-made man” and pointed out how he had “inherited a ton of money from his dad.”

“I’m not so sure Trump has been a good businessman,” Gordon-Levitt claimed. “He likes to say that he’s a self-made man, but he’s lying. He inherited a ton of money from his dad, and when you start out with that much initial capital, it’s a little like shooting fish in a barrel.”

“Even if he were a successful businessman, which I’m not sure he has been, I think there are pretty much two different types of successful business people in this world,” Gordon-Levitt continued. “There are the honest business people who have an honest-to-goodness valuable product, or good, or service that they can bring to the world, and they treat their employees well. They treat their investors and their vendors and their customers well, and in turn, they are treated well and they do well as a businessman or businessperson.”

“There’s another type of successful businessman,” Gordon-Levitt added. “That’s a conman.”

Gordon-Levitt added that, “a conman, different than an honest businessman might or might not have an honest-to-goodness product or service to offer the world.”

The Week also added that Trump “has spent his life making his name synonymous with wealth and success,” noting that there are things like, “Trump Steaks, Trump magazine, and TRUMP the board game.”

“His fans can sip on Trump Water, Trump Wine, or Trump Vodka; they can kit out their homes with Trump Home Furnishings,” the outlet added.