Donald Trump likes to take credit for charitable donations that he didn’t actually make, according to a new report. That’s the claim in a new Washington Post report that looks at the personal gifts that Trump promised to give to the charities of contestants who were “fired” from his show Celebrity Apprentice.
From the Post:
The Washington Post tracked all the “personal” gifts that Trump promised on the show—during 83 episodes and seven seasons—but could not confirm a single case in which Trump actually sent a gift from his own pocket.
Working from transcripts, YouTube clips, online recaps, and public tax records, the Post examined “21 separate instances where Trump had pledged money to a celebrity’s cause” totaling $464,000.
Trump would couch these gifts as coming directly from him, saying one time that the money had come “out of my wallet” and another that it was coming “out of my own account.”
According to the Post, here’s who actually gave the money:
In 2012, Trump had promised $10,000 to the Latino Commission on AIDS, the charity of former Miss Universe Dayana Mendoza. The charity said it never received the money.
In two other cases, it was not possible to determine what happened. One charity said that somebody had paid off Trump’s promise but declined to say who. Leaders of another charity — baseball star Darryl Strawberry’s foundation, to which Trump had promised $25,000—did not respond to multiple calls or emails from The Post. In the other 18 cases, the answer was the same—on-air, Trump promising a gift of his own money; off-air, that gift coming from someone else.
The newspaper put out the analysis as part of its look into Trump’s claims that he has given millions of dollars away to charity over the years. A previous investigation by the Post had only been able to track down less than $10,000 in personal donations made since 2009 and $2.8 million given through his foundation since 2001, which was less than a third of the amount he had publicly pledged.
In terms of Celebrity Apprentice donations, the money was not coming from Trump. The Post found that all “of Trump’s promises from the show’s last three seasons were paid off by the Trump Foundation” except for one $100,000 donation that was paid off by a production company. This is notable, because Trump has not donated to his own foundation since 2008. But in 2012, the foundation received a gift from NBC that would have been enough to cover every single one of the foundation’s gifts to celebrity charities.
