One of the truly brilliant tactical innovations of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is how it can cloud the minds of men. Gaffes and outrageous statements are quickly forgotten by the press and the public because there is always something else to comment about the next day. The same goes for his pledges about his charitable giving and donations to his own campaign. Trump has a habit of saying something and, by the time someone in the press checks up on it and finds out the truth, the campaign and the public have moved on to other things, burying the correction.
But now that we’re heading into the general election with even more intense scrutiny for the candidates, the bills are coming due on a lot of the things Trump has said. That means the truth about how his campaign is being funded and whether he has given as much to charity as he has claimed is emerging—and the picture it paints isn’t very flattering.
As NBC reported, Trump won’t release the proof that he has, as he claimed last week, forgiven over $45 million in loans to his campaign. Trump has never tired of boasting about how he is self-funding his quest for the presidency. But a week later, the Federal Elections Commission has said they haven’t received the minimal paperwork that would confirm the loans won’t be repaid. When pressed about it, Trump’s spokesperson Hope Hicks said the paperwork would be filed at the next FEC monthly report.
Assuming that it is just a matter of waiting a few weeks, does this matter? Actually, it does. As long as those loans are not forgiven, Trump can take any new donations and use them to pay himself back. Coming at a time when he is making his first serious efforts to raise money from the public, that option becomes a possibility. Moreover, this must be seen in the context of the fact that Trump has already directed over $6 million of his campaign funds and more than one-sixth of everything he spent in May to his own businesses. Unlike every other presidential candidate in memory, Trump has also never ceased his involvement in his far-flung business empire as we saw last week when he took time off from campaigning to promote his failing golf courses in Scotland. So these aren’t idle speculations, and, until we get proof that he isn’t self-dealing here, skepticism is in order.
Which brings us to another topic where Trump is more or less daring us to question his truthfulness.
Over the years, Trump has also boasted of his philanthropy, pledging to give the proceeds from various enterprises to good causes. The question arose after Trump promised to give more than $1 million to veterans’ causes back during the winter but never made good on the pledge until the Washington Post pressed him on it, for which Trump banned them from traveling with his campaign. But, unfortunately for Trump, that ludicrous act of vengeance hasn’t deterred the paper from inquiring more deeply into his other charitable giving.
As the Post reported:
In the 15 years prior to the veterans donation, Trump promised to donate earnings from a wide variety of his moneymaking enterprises: “The Apprentice.” Trump Vodka. Trump University. A book. Another book. If he had honored all those pledges, Trump’s gifts to charity would have topped $8.5 million.
But in the 15 years prior to the veterans’ gift, public records show that Trump donated about $2.8 million through a foundation set up to give his money away—less than a third of the pledged amount— nd nothing since 2009. Records show Trump has given nothing to his foundation since 2008.
Trump’s staff says that he has given lots to various causes off the books of his foundation. But the Post has been trying to dig up records since the 1980s and contacted 188 non-profits to which Trump has been connected. What they found is that he has a disconcerting habit of making promises without following up: “The search turned up just one donation in that period—a 2009 gift of between $5,000 and $9,999 to the Police Athletic League of New York City.”
Trump talks a big game about charity and has given some impressive donations. But what he gives is almost always far less than he has said he would and does not appear commensurate with the immense wealth that he is always bragging about.
Of course, we wouldn’t have to rely on the Washington Post’s investigative work to discover the facts about his donations if Trump released his taxes. But, despite repeated promises to do so, that hasn’t happened and, by this point, no one expects it.
That makes him the first presidential candidate in recent history to refuse to disclose, and it’s hard to blame anyone for thinking the reason is that he is either not as wealthy as he has claimed or that he’s given far less to charity than even the skeptics have supposed.
Will any of this make a difference to the voters?
Probably not to Trump’s fan base. But in a general election, in which he needs to gain the support of independents and Republicans who are disgusted by his comments and antics as well as his left-wing protectionist economics and isolationist foreign policy, his credibility is key. It’s also important when you consider that the main problem with his opponent Hillary Clinton is her well-earned reputation for being untrustworthy. If Trump has lied about campaign loans and his charitable donations, that advantage is lost. So long as Trump’s stories keep shifting and the truth remains obscured, Clinton’s lies won’t matter.