The Slatest

At Highly Publicized Appearance, Trump Declares He Wanted No Credit for Fundraiser He Was Forced to Talk About

Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at the Trump Tower on May 31, 2016 in New York.

Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

Four months ago, and only days before the Iowa caucus, Donald Trump skipped a Fox News-hosted Republican debate and instead offered up his own counter-programming for other cable news networks: a fundraiser for U.S. veterans that doubled as a campaign rally for the celebrity billionaire. “Like running for office as an extremely successful person, this takes guts and it is the kind of mentality our country needs in order to Make America Great Again,” the Trump campaign boasted in a statement announcing his decision to boycott the primetime debate in favor of hosting a fundraiser only a few miles down the road.

On Tuesday, after weeks of questions about whether Trump had actually raised the $6 million he claimed he did that night and where, exactly, that money went, the candidate finally provided his first detailed accounting, reading off a list of 41 different charities that he says have since received a total of roughly $5.6 million raised as a result of that night.* The reality television star-turned-politician also stood before cameras and declared—not kidding—that he never wanted to get credit for any of it.

“If we could, I wanted to keep it private because I don’t think it’s anybody’s business if I want to send money to the vets,” Trump said of a fundraiser he’s repeatedly boasted about as proof of his largess and power. “I wanted to make this out of the goodness of my heart—I didn’t want to do this where the press is involved,” Trump said of donations he funneled through the charitable foundation that bears his name. “I didn’t want the credit for raising all this money for the vets,” Trump said inside a building with his last name emblazoned on the front of it in giant, gold letters.

Trump rarely misses an opportunity to play the role of benevolent billionaire for personal or political gain, and this fundraising stunt was no different. Yes, donating his own money and raising other people’s for charity is, generally speaking, a “good thing,” but this was not a selfless good deed that Trump wants to pretend it was. He used the fundraiser to avoid facing another grilling from Fox News (back before it boarded the Trump Train) and to maintain his stranglehold on the news cycle ahead of the first nominating contest of 2016. For Trump to argue that he didn’t want publicity—that he didn’t actively court it that night in Iowa—is laughable.

In addition to getting yet more attention for himself, the 40-minute presser—carried live, in full by the major cable networks—also gave Trump a platform to go after one of his favorite targets: the media. Specifically he went after the very reporters who pressured him into holding the news conference in the first place, with their incessant questioning about his philanthropic actions and demands that he account for the funds. In between naming his chosen charities, Trump called one TV reporter a “sleaze” and generally lambasted a press corps he claims has been “extremely dishonest,” “unfair,” and “probably libelous” for not taking Trump at his word.

Will it work? Trump’s true believers will almost certainly see things the way their man does: Trump’s just trying to help America’s heroes while the media is unfairly harassing him at every turn. And—assuming his documentation checks out—Trump may have even closed the book on this particular controversy. But in the process, he also gave the rest of the country one more reason to question whether he’s willing to follow through on his promises after the spotlight moves on.

Read more Slate coverage of the 2016 campaign.

*Correction, May 31, 2016: An earlier version misstated the number of charities Donald Trump listed at the event as “roughly two dozen.”