Last night on my weekly segment on Mark Thompson’s radio show on Sirious/XM, a caller challenged my long-running assertion that Donald Trump, in his 70 years, has never altruistically helped a single person. It’s an assertion backed up by simple observation—his people couldn’t drum up a single person to sing Trump’s charitable praises during his convention. And as for his actual charitable foundation, we now know its biggest benefactor is himself.
But this caller brought up the case of Annabel Hill, the wife of a farmer who committed suicide to try and save his family farm (except that the life insurance policy didn’t pay out, because suicides are exempt). As one conservative columnist wrote:
Trump told the Atlanta businessman that his wife, Ivana, had seen the report on the Hill family’s plight on the network news, and she suggested that he get involved. The magnate summoned [wealthy Atlanta businessman Frank] Argenbright and the Hills to New York. After a brief interview, Trump signed onto the cause [...] Trump provided $20,000 to stave off foreclosure of the Hill farm, but his name was initially kept out of the picture.
Ah yeah, Trump was trying to keep his largess anonymous, because that’s just who he is, right? Except looking back at the archives of the event, what we see is vintage Trump, using the event to do what Trump does best—promote himself.
Annabel Hill gleefully watched millionaire Donald Trump burn her $130,000 mortgage Tuesday, thanked him for paying off a stifling farm debt that drove her husband to suicide and praised 'the good will in men's hearts.'
The mortgage-burning ceremony, held amid sparkling Christmas decorations draping Manhattan's 68-story Trump Tower, brought Hill and her eldest son Jim together with the three wealthy businessmen who helped raise the money needed to save the Waynesboro, Ga., farm.
The amount of money Trump donated to the effort was anywhere between $20-68,000 (depending on when Trump talks about it). But given that he turned the affair into a big photo op for himself, with wide and positive coverage, fact is that even at that higher amount, it may have been some of the best PR money he ever spent on himself.
And also remember that even in his own telling, it was his wife that prodded him into action. He wasn’t about to do anything of this sort on his own initiative, and certainly not without getting something out of it himself.
So has Donald Trump ever genuinely helped someone altruistically? He’s 70 years old. He has big money. He must’ve done something nice for someone, right?
Right?