White House Walks Back Trump Pledge to Donate $1 Million of ‘Personal Money’ to Harvey Relief
Donald Trump is extremely well-known for his tendency to bend (or break) the truth, particularly when it comes to portraying himself in the most favorable light possible. While there are virtually limitless examples of this, one particularly vile demonstration of his propensity to lie is his exaggerations and fabrications of how charitable he supposedly is to various causes. The case du jour of this predictable behavior is his pledge to donate $1 million to the Harvey relief effort.
Trump Already Reneging On His Pledge
On Thursday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that President Trump would donate $1 million of his “personal money” to Hurricane Harvey victims. But on Friday, her story had changed and she said she wasn’t so sure.
When asked whether the money would be coming from the president himself or from his foundation, in typical Trump administration fashion, she dodged giving an answer by saying that she hadn’t “had the chance” to confer with the president about that yet, despite having already made an announcement about the supposed charitable donation the day before.
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This pattern of behavior has been well documented, so much to suggest that Donald Trump actually has hardly given any money at all to charity over the years, and in fact has used his foundation as a means to line his own pockets, not to mention emblazon his fragile ego. During the presidential campaign last year Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold did a story (for which he won a Pulitzer) on Trump’s claims about donating millions of dollars to veterans groups. Curious to know which groups would or had received funds, Fahrenthold called through the list of organizations that had allegedly been donated to asking how much or whether money had been given. The answer was consistently “none” and “no”. After persistently hounding the campaign, Trump eventually made a donation.
But his record is clear, Trump’s tendency to inflate and fabricate his charitable acts is consistent with his temperament. His pathological narcissism manifests itself in many ugly ways, on a regular basis, for the whole world to see. Now, as we’ve witnessed time and again, he seeks to exploit the pain of hurricane Harvey victims to stroke his own ego.
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