Trump Finally Caves, Gives Money to Vets After Media Badgers Him Into It

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Our story so far: on January 28, Donald Trump pledged $1 million at a charity fundraiser for veterans. Four months later, after considerable digging, the Washington Post was unable to find any evidence that he had made good on his pledge, so they asked his campaign manager about it. On Friday, Corey Lewandowski said “The money is fully spent. Mr. Trump’s money is fully spent.” So who did he give it to? “He’s not going to share that information.”

So the Post kept digging all day Monday. Finally, on Tuesday, we learned that Lewandowski had lied. Trump had not, in fact, given any money to anyone:

Trump said in an interview Tuesday that he pledged the $1 million to the Marine Corps – Law Enforcement Foundation. The mogul notified the group’s chairman, retired FBI official James Kallstrom, in a phone call sometime Monday night, according to Kallstrom’s wife, Sue Kallstrom.

The Washington Post had been querying charities on social media, trying to find evidence that his $1 million had been received by any veterans’ groups. Trump fulfilled his pledge hours later, it appears.

Why had it taken almost four months? “You have a lot of vetting to do,” Trump said….When asked if the Monday donation was in response to questions from the news media, Trump said: “You know, you’re a nasty guy. You’re really a nasty guy. I gave out millions of dollars that I had no obligation to do.”

Even for Trump, this is inexplicable. Whenever you think he can’t possibly be a bigger douche, he proves you wrong. What a revolting human being he is.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

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