Trump signals he'll use White House for business gains: 'A president can't have a conflict'

Most of the time during Donald Trump’s meeting at the New York Times offices today was devoted to explaining how he, Donald Trump, was perfectly free to use the White House as profit center for his business enterprises and that nobody could stop him.

This is of course an iteration of the famous Nixonian theory: If the president does it, it’s not illegal. And this wasn’t a one-off supposition, it was the theme of his defense. He doesn’t have to divest himself from his businesses no matter what past precedent is. He’s perfectly free to mix presidential foreign policy calls with business deals if he wants to.

For the record, or what is left of it, this is unprecedented.