New Hampshire House Minority Leader Steve Shurtleff, D-Concord, criticized Trump’s plan to reform the Veterans Administration, saying he’s concerned about VA privatization.
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Instead of appearing on an Iowa stage with his presidential competitors at a January 28 Republican debate, Trump hosted what his campaign called a “special event to benefit veterans organizations” that night, later saying it raised $6 million.
“I am opposed to everything Donald Trump stands for”, said Jake Maier, a Marine Corp veteran from New Jersey who said he would be voting for Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders in his state primary next week.
Trump made his own million-dollar donation on May 23, after the Washington Post had raised questions about the process on Twitter-and in a news story the next day.
The Associated Press discovered that most of the veterans groups did not receive a check from Trump’s fundraiser until it became clear that it was going to become a campaign issue.
“We were told a day before a check would be coming”, he said. “Some of it went out more recently”.
Donald Trump referred to ABC News reporter Tom Llamas as a “sleaze” at a press conference Tuesday at Trump Tower in New York City. “Okay. Thank you all very much”. “I didn’t want the credit for it, but it was very unfair that the press treated us so badly”. “I’ve never received such bad publicity for doing a good job”. He said Trump has given that amount, but he declined to identify any recipients.
The largest donation, a $1 million check dated May 24 and drawn from Donald J. Trump’s personal account, was addressed to a small Tuckahoe, New York, group that provides scholarships to the children of fallen Marines.
“We received a check for $75,000 last Wednesday [May 25]”, Sam Kille, the communications manager for the Bob Woodruff Foundation, told The Hill.
Trump said he didn’t “want the credit” for his fundraising, “but I shouldn’t be lambasted” – that despite Trump repeatedly touting the donations himself on the campaign trail since the January fundraiser, which was televised in what some at the time dubbed a PR stunt. But months later, many groups reported that the money had yet to materialize.
Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks did not respond to questions about what Trump’s team had done to vet the group or whether its vetting had turned up these concerns. The foundation had presented Trump with an award at its 2015 gala held at a ritzy NY hotel.
Democrat Hillary Clinton’s supporters were outside the Trump event. But when Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold started looking into which groups had received the money, he discovered that none had. The campaign also said it had taken months to carefully vet each of the groups receiving money.
Louden’s absurd claim that “the Clinton Foundation hangs onto more than 80 percent of the money that is raised” is fact-checked by CNN’s Carol Costello, who easily finds it to be false: “The bulk of the Clinton Foundation’s charitable work is actually performed in house”.
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It is definitely important to scrutinize Trump and the way he is using American veterans as pawns, but it’s also critical to know how the next president will help those who put their lives on the line for us.
