November 27, 2018

Donald Trump’s “Giving Tuesday” Message Reminded Us How Little He Gives to Others

And how much he gives to himself.

Hannah Foslien/Getty

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

In honor of Giving Tuesday, Donald Trump issued a presidential message encouraging people to donate to charity and applauding the generosity of the American people: “Through acts of charity, we reveal the compassionate foundation of our country. Acts of kindness are hallmarks of our great Nation, and we acknowledge the tremendous contributions of the many organizations that provide love, hope, care, and counseling all year long, especially on #GivingTuesday,” it said. 

The dispatch didn’t say whether Trump planned to make any donations of his own, but in the past, the president has regularly pretended to be a bigger donor than he really was. And in many cases, he has found creative and unusual ways to use his family’s charitable foundation to give back—to himself.

Some of those actions have landed Trump and his three adult children in legal trouble. This past summer, New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood brought a civil suit against the Trumps, alleging “persistently illegal conduct” at the Donald J. Trump Foundation. “In the absence of a functioning board”—the foundation’s board of directors allegedly hasn’t held a meeting in nearly 20 years—”Mr. Trump ran the Foundation according to his whim, rather than the law,” the suit said.

In honor of Giving Tuesday, here are some of the foundation’s greatest hits:

  • Paying $10,000 for a large portrait of Trump, one of two portraits of its namesake the Trump Foundation is known to have purchased. It was later found on the wall of Trump National Doral Miami, one of the president’s for-profit golf resorts. (Citing a charitable interpretation of IRS rules, a Trump spokesman said the move was “absolutely proper” because the Doral was simply “storing” the portrait for the Trump Foundation.)

  • Allowing staffers from Trump’s presidential campaign to control the distribution of money that Trump raised for veterans’ organizations as part of a televised event he held in January 2016 in lieu of attending a debate hosted by Fox News—which Trump was feuding with at the time. Underwood’s lawsuit described the event as “a Trump Campaign event in which the Foundation participated.” Nonprofits like the Trump Foundation are not allowed to take part in political campaigns. Trump also claimed he would personally donate $1 million to the veterans groups—which he did only after the media badgered him for four months.

If all this weren’t enough, most of the above-mentioned donations may have been from people other than Trump. In at least five out of the last nine years, he hasn’t donated a cent to his family foundation, though others have.

You can read the “Presidential Message on #GivingTuesday”  below. For extra fun, try to imagine these words actually coming out of Donald Trump’s mouth. 

During this joyous time of year, we give thanks for the many blessings of the season and remember those less fortunate as we reaffirm our commitment to generosity, kindness, and charitable giving.

Through acts of charity, we reveal the compassionate foundation of our country.  Acts of kindness are hallmarks of our great Nation, and we acknowledge the tremendous contributions of the many organizations that provide love, hope, care, and counseling all year long, especially on #GivingTuesday.

As one Nation, we know there is no challenge too great for the American people to overcome.  American resilience is evident not just in the selfless deeds of first responders, service members, and volunteers, but also in the extraordinary generosity and benevolence of American families, businesses, and organizations that know that no kind gesture is too insignificant, no length of time volunteering is too short, and no contribution to charity is too small.  May this holiday season be a reminder of the blessings we enjoy and of our duty to ensure that the spirit of American greatness continues to lift up people in need throughout our communities.

Melania and I thank all those who have dedicated their time, talents, and resources to charitable causes over this past year, and we encourage you to look for opportunities to contribute this coming year.

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.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

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

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

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.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

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

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate