Trump backers finally reap rewards after years of debanking, black-listing

The business of MAGA is booming. There’s crypto, and of course The Donald’s signature country clubs  and golf courses that people are willing to pay big bucks to get into.

There’s also a quieter but increasingly lucrative business of consulting corporate America on how best to deal with Trumpers who control the vast administrative state, On The Money has learned.

Yes, knowing President Trump and the people he has appointed is a good thing these days, four years ago not so much.

In fact, being associated with Trump for many people who served during his first term was for a time the employment version of catching leprosy, former Trump officials tell me.

Their comments came following my scoop that JPMorgan and Bank of America “debanked” Trump for his role in the January 6 Capitol Hill melee. It followed pressure from the Biden administration, people at the banks say, to steer clear of Trump and his family’s business interests after he lost the 2020 presidential campaign.

You can be like me and not condone the January 6 upheaval and still shudder at the thought that Trump’s actions that day means he can’t have a private business life, which is what the Biden administrative state working with the nation’s two largest banks appeared to have tried to do, people at the banks confirm.

But the blackballing apparently didn’t stop at the banking business – it spanned across corporate America, sources told On The Money.

It included major corporations throwing away the resumes of very capable people, being excommunicated from teaching posts at major universities. It meant being kicked off the speaking circuit, and no book deals, all for working for a time with Trump during his first term, former officials said.

Here’s how one former top Trump economic aide put it: “The entire weight of government came out against Trump and people who worked for him including yours truly. It went beyond banking. People couldn’t get hired. People couldn’t get speaking gigs. It was really, really bad all fueled by the Biden administration.”

How it was communicated by the Biden people to big companies to blacklist Trump and his people isn’t quite known. Big business, however, is highly regulated. You can see how having a former Trumper in a top role at a major corporation, or Trump’s businesses holding accounts at JPMorgan or Bank of America, could bring scrutiny or worse. So why take the risk?

Most major companies and banks didn’t, my reporting shows. The people from Trump who did land not long after January 6 and Trump’s first term ended did so in safe spaces for conservative voices, such as my employer, Fox News (which shares corporate ownership with The Post) and right-of-center think tanks.

Of course, many Americans rebelled against Sleepy Joe’s various economic policies – from high taxes to inflation-inducing overspending – coupled with high regulation, not to mention its embrace of woke culture.

Trump was re-elected president in 2024 and corporate America began to open up to former Trump acolytes,

But until recently, when Trump actually got back into the White House for Round 2, their job prospects  never matched what those who served in the Obama administration experienced. They immediately snapped up jobs on corporate boards, and landed plum assignments in public policy and public affairs the minute Barack left office.

Gary Goldstein, CEO of Whitney Partners, an executive search firm, said part of the problem with being associated with Trump wasn’t just his deeds during January 6, or even his election denialism after he lost to Biden in 2020.

 Rather, it stems from the fact that businesses hate controversy and before he was president, Trump was a polarizing figure in New York, known more for his brash persona and reality TV show, Goldstein tells Fox Business’s Teuta Dedvukaj.

 “Anyone who is in business and gets involved in politics is putting themselves in harm’s way,” Goldstein said. “It’s better to be agnostic. Once you cross that line, especially with someone like Trump, you can’t un-ring that bell.”

Well, being elected president a second time has done a lot for un-ringing. JPM and BofA will now gladly take The Donald’s money, and the banks are all hiring consultants and flacks to deal with MAGA 2.0.

Finally it’s getting profitable to be MAGA.