New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman blasted Donald Trump on HuffPost Live Tuesday for allegedly making false promises and scamming student entrepreneurs out of money at Trump University. In describing the alleged scam, Schneiderman brought up Bernie Madoff and when asked by host Ahmed Shihab-Eldin whether the two cases were similar, the New York attorney general drew comparisons between the real estate tycoon and Madoff.
"What they were telling people they were going to get is clearly not what they got," Schneiderman said of Trump's promises to teach his secrets to success in real estate. "And look unfortunately in hard economic times, desperate people sometimes make the best victims."
"There's a class action [lawsuit] on behalf of his students against him in California," continued Schneiderman. "[Trump] sued the named plaintiff for defamation. It was struck down by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, a major federal court that said, 'Victims often sing the praises of their victimizers until the moment they realize their money is gone,' and compared Trump to Bernie Madoff."
When asked directly if Trump is like Madoff, Schneiderman said, "It was a scheme to lure people in with promises of very unrealistic returns on their investment and returns on their time .... It was really ludicrous representations that were being made. And about 5,000 people across the country were deceived, and they put up about 40 million bucks, a lot of it ending up in Mr. Trump's pocket. It's just a plain old bait and switch scheme. It's a classic."
Later in the interview, Schneiderman referred to Trump's defense as a "bizarre conspiracy theory."
To hear more from Eric Schneiderman, watch the full segment below:
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