Eye saw you
Risky business
While it would be better to avoid a situation where Chapter 11 reorganization is necessary, filing for bankruptcy can be a "sound business decision" when the company is facing serious financial problems, Venditto said. It’s better than the business shutting down completely.
"However, the source of the financial problems varies from case to case," he said. "Sometimes it is the result of circumstances beyond the control of the business. Sometime it caused by poor judgment. More frequently, it is a combination."
Trump’s four bankruptcies all happened within the past 25 years. That’s a lot, said Stephen Lubben, a leading expert in corporate finance and professor at Seton Hall School of Law. But to be fair, the gaming industry has been struggling the past few years, he added, and three out of four of Trump’s bankruptcies were tied to casinos.
It’s not fair to put all the blame on Trump for the four bankruptcies because he’s acting as any investor would. Investors often own many non-integrated companies, which they fund by taking on debt, and some of them inevitably file for bankruptcy, said Adam Levitin, a law professor at Georgetown University.
He added that people typically wouldn’t personally blame former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney or investor Warren Buffett for individual failures within their investment companies, Bain Capital and Berkshire Hathaway, respectively.
"The only difference is that Trump puts his name on his companies, which means people associate them with him, but
he's not at all the leader in the bankruptcy space," Levitan said. "These bankruptcies were not defining moments for Trump and shouldn't color our view of him."
Our ruling
Fiorina said Trump was "forced to file for bankruptcy not once, not twice, four times."
While it is accurate that Trump filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy four times, Fiorina’s statement doesn’t tell the whole story. In context, Fiorina’s phrasing suggests Trump was personally responsible for the failures of these businesses, but in reality, much was out of Trump’s control -- such as a struggling casino industry.
But Trump is certainly not blameless. https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/sep/21/carly-fiorina/trumps-four-bankruptcies/