Trump in Restaurant Deposition: White House Run Benefits Business

Donald Trump said in a deposition filed Friday that his run for the White House has made his brand more valuable, denying claims made by a celebrity chef that his comments about Mexicans had taken value away from his businesses.

"I think people like politics," Trump said during the deposition, held in July but not filed in Washington D.C. district court until late Friday, reports The Washington Post. "They like to be around the name and maybe me. I think people really dig it."

The deposition was taken in connection with a lawsuit Trump filed against celebrity chef Geoffrey Zakarian, a Food Network star. He and Washington restauranteur Jose Andres backed out of the restaurants they planned for Trump's new hotel after his election announcement comments that drugs and criminals were pouring through the nation's southern border.

Trump is seeking $10 million in a breach-of-contract lawsuit from Zakarian, who is the executive chef in several restaurants in New York City, Atlantic City, and Miami. The chef said in his own deposition that he backed out for the sake of his reputation and for financial reasons.

"The fact of the matter is he poisoned the space," Zakarian said last year. "You don't have to do much analysis. It's just like you're out of business. This was just no longer viable anymore."

Zakarian said he was also backing out for moral reasons, as "all my employees are Mexicans or Hispanics, almost all of them. It's disgraceful."

In the report filed Friday, taken from Trump's deposition by Zakarian's Washington attorneys, the GOP candidate told the lawyers a manager at one of his Palm Beach properties had reported that his presidential race has helped lead to the "best year we've ever had,"

"Well, maybe the success of the campaign," Trump continued to the attorneys. "You know people have said there's never been anything like this," Trump said.

Trump also defended his statements about Mexican immigrants to the attorneys, telling them that the issue is a "very big topic" in the United States that "has led to my nomination in a major party in the country. So it's not a very out-there topic."

However, Trump did admit his comments hurt some of his other business enterprises, including losing his relationship with Macy's and the Serta mattress manufacturer, but at the same time said he didn't think it mattered "one way or the other."

He said he remains in demand, though, as NBC had wanted to renew his TV program, "The Apprentice," but he'd decided to back out because he was running for president.

Trump told the attorneys his daughter Ivanka and his son, Donald Jr., manage most of the day-to-day operations of his business empire, and that his son recommended Zakarian. Trump said he'd not heard of the chef or eaten at any of his restaurants.

He went on to say that he had planned what he was going to say about immigration in the 2015 announcement speech, but that his comments were not part of a prepared speech. Further, he blamed the news media for misinterpreting the comments.

"I think the media is very dishonest," he said. "But all I'm doing is bringing up a situation which is very real, about illegal immigration. And I think, you know, most people think I'm right."

He also claimed that he'd made similar statements before deciding to run for the presidency and before he'd entered into an agreement with Zakarian for the hotel restaurant.

Trump commented that tapping into illegal immigration and "other things, also," has led to him getting "more votes than anybody in the history of the party, history of the party by far, more than Ronald Reagan, more than Richard Nixon, more than Dwight D.

"Eisenhower who won the Second World War, you know, that's pretty mainstream, when you think about it," he said.

And with such a strong campaign, Zakarian would have benefited had he not backed out the agreement, but instead, the celebrity chef's decision "really let down" the hotel project, said Trump.

"He had his lease, he was all set," Trump said in the deposition. "He was going to spend all this money on building this place. All of the sudden he says he's going to violate his lease."

Trump's new hotel is scheduled to open in September, and is part of the $200 million project to makeover the Old Post Office Pavilion in Northwest Washington on Pennsylvania Avenue.