Suggesting that this whole “becoming a real-estate mogul, a reality TV star, and ultimately (somehow) the President Of The United States” thing might have just been a cover to get his hands on the Nakatomi corporation’s bearer bonds, it turns out that Donald Trump was once business partners with Hans Gruber. As noted by New Yorker reporter Amos Posner—and reported on by German news outlet Deutsche Welle—Hans Ulrich Gruber was a major part of Trump’s mid-2000s plans to extend his empire of Trump Towers to Germany, presumably with the able assistance of Tony, Marco, Karl, and Franco.
And, look: We know this Gruber—who was once the head of German steel conglomerate ThyssenKrupp—isn’t the Alan Rickman character from Die Hard, trading quips, humming “Ode To Joy,” and getting shot by guys with pistols duct-taped to their back. (He’s probably not even his evil brother, Jeremy Irons.) But given that Trump‘s inner circle currently includes a guy who helped make Suicide Squad and a member of the Darth Vader fan club, there’s still something very amusing to us about Rickman’s drolly iconic bad guy rolling up to a West Wing table, right next to Scar from The Lion King, Lord Voldemort, and Mike Pence.