Anti-Trump Groups' Massive Protest; How Rich Is Donald Trump
COSTELLO: I'm really rich. Donald Trump has posted of his wealth more than once during this election session. Trump argues that if he can make a fortune for himself, he can do the same for you. His campaign claims he's worth some $10 billion. But the GOP front- runner still hasn't released his tax returns. Those billions though are in sharp contrast to the millions of Americans he wants to leave. According to the Census Bureau the average American household took home just over $53,000 in 2015. So let's talk about money with CNN money correspondent Cristina Alesci. Good morning.</s>CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. So Trump more than any other candidate in modern history, Carol, has really focused on his business success and the fact that he is rich. And the reason why we're focusing on this is because he focuses on it, right? So my producer and I went to the only publicly available information about how rich he really is, which is this 92-page financial disclosure form that all candidates have to file with the Federal Election Commission and we started digging through this document and what we found was that there were more questions than answers. Take a look.</s>ALESCI (voice-over): It's Donald Trump's pitch to the American people, I've built a fortune for myself and I can do it for the country too.</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I built a great, great company. Trump stakes -- where are the stakes? The winery, you see the wine. I have done great and that's the kind of thinking you're going to have to need.</s>ALESCI: But just how great has Donald Trump done? This 94-page financial disclosure released by the Federal Election Commission may be long, but it's short on specifics.</s>ROBERT KELNER, PARTNER, CONVINGTON & BURLING: The form doesn't call for a great deal of detail. It allows you to report, for example, ranges of income rather than exact amounts which is a little different than a tax return that you might file with the</s>IRS. ALESCI: But the government doesn't require Trump to release his tax records. The long disclosure document which candidates must file is the only official window into Trump's wealth. From January 2014 to June of 2015, it shows at least $1.4 billion in assets.</s>TREVOR POTTER, FORMER FEC CHAIRMAN: It was a somewhat inflated report in the sense that he lists as his assets billions of dollars in good will for the Trump name, I don't know what the marketplace pays for that, but that is unusual for those forms.</s>ALESCI: It also includes at least $433 million in income, according to our tally and checked by a third party. But it's hard to tell whether that income is actually flowing into Trump's pockets or into his company's coffers.</s>KELNER: He lists revenues rather than income. He has, for example, his golf courses, golf related revenue, so it makings it a little bit difficult to know, is that just the gross revenue of his golf course or is that actually the income of Donald Trump after you pay for all the expenses of running the golf course?</s>ALESCI: In the end, the distinction may not matter, at least not to the government. The financial disclosure form is supposed to find potential conflicts of interest, it's not a check on the candidate's math. And Trump's math has always been hard to verify says author, Tim O'Brien. Trump sued him claiming that O'Brien low balled his net worth. The case was dismissed.</s>TIM O'BRIEN, AUTHOR, TRUMPNATION: Any time he estimates his own net worth he adds in this humongous figure for good will and branding. He says, the Trump brand is worth X many billions. And that's just Donald sitting around eating a cheeseburger saying, I'm worth X billion of dollar.</s>ALESCI: In July, Trump claimed a net worth of $10 billion, "Forbes" and "Wealth-X" put it closer to 4 billion. We reached out to the Trump campaign but didn't get a comment. Short of an independent audit, all we really know for sure is this --</s>TRUMP: I'm really rich, I'll show you that in a second.</s>ALESCI: Most people, Carol, know him because of the name on these tall glitzy buildings in New York and around the world. But what was interesting with this financial disclosure document is that we found out that more than half of his income actually comes from golf courses and resorts which is very interesting because it's not the first thing you think of when you think of Donald Trump.</s>COSTELLO: No. I'm just struggling -- I'm from the Midwest, we're not showy people from the Midwest. What difference does it make if you're worth 10 billion or $4 billion? Like what difference does it make? You're rich.</s>ALESCI: Yes, I think that is -- I think that's an excellent point but I also think that people want honesty and they want to know, you know, are you, you know, saying what you're really worth? And why do you -- if there are questions around this, why do you have to inflate it? Why is it important to Donald Trump to say that he's worth $10 billion rather than, you know, the 4 billion that are -- that other outlets have estimated? And what's really interesting is since you're from New York I'm going to -- I'm going to mention this, the fact that there is an ice skating rink here in Central Park, Wollman Rink, many people outside of New York don't know that it's owned by Donald Trump. And we found it in his financial discloser. And he generates about $8 million a year from ice skating -- from an ice skating rink.</s>COSTELLO: Wow.</s>ALESCI: So more to come on that.