Unpopular President Donald Trump does not like being unpopular. So much so that the above photo comparing both his and President Barack Obama’s inauguration days was an early source of psychological anguish for the orange Trump. Trump insisted that just like his pretend “historic” Electoral College landslide victory, he also had a historically attended inauguration. While virtually anyone taking their meds knew that this was silly billy talk, Trump and his Kool-Aid drinking Republican crew powered forward with this mythology. Recently, the Financial Election Committee (FEC) released their report on the inauguration costs and, lo and behold, Trump’s inauguration was historic.
The inaugural committee filed a report showing it raised in excess of $106.7 million, a record-shattering sum for a presidential swearing-in. As they released the names of donors and their gifts as required, Trump's inaugural planners said in a statement that the events they put on made for "one of the most accessible and affordable inaugurations for the public in recent history."
Just like the Republican administration’s healthcare plans, you could access it but the stuff you actually want access to costs a little too much for Joe American. The companies that decided to try to grease Trump’s wheels post-election include Boeing, Charles Schwab, Bank of America’s Christopher Cline, BP Corp and numerous others. To put this into perspective, President Obama’s inauguration took about half as much corporate money.
Those megadonors contributed to Trump's monster inauguration haul of nearly $107 million, the FEC forms show. That sum doubles President Barack Obama's then-record inauguration donations in 2009, which totaled around $53 million.
The Trump organization wants everyone to know that they raised this money in order to save the taxpayers money. It turns out that besides not saving the taxpayers money, they are also probably being super shady with where all of this “inauguration money” is actually going.
"I can't imagine how [Trump’s inaugural team is] going to spend that amount of money — and why they would even keep raising money,” Steve Kerrigan, the CEO for Obama’s 2013 inaugural told The Associated Press. “We planned the two largest inaugurations in the history of our country and we never spent anywhere near that.”
According to the New York Times, Trump’s Inauguration Committee says that any “leftover money” would be donated to charities—but they just hadn’t “identified” those charities yet. We all know how great Trump’s track record with charity work is.
People like Sean Hannity erroneously reported that President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration cost four times the amount spent on previous President George W. Bush’s inauguration festivities. They used total security costs for Obama’s inauguration while forgetting to add that amount to George W. Bush’s special day.
During the January 21 edition of Fox News' Hannity, host Sean Hannity allowed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) -- who Hannity asserted has "an incredible background in economics" -- to claim that "[President] Barack Obama spen[t] three times" what former President Bush spent on his inauguration. In doing so, Hannity allowed his show to become the latest media outlet to promote the false comparison between the costs of Obama's January 20 inauguration and Bush's 2005 inauguration. In fact, as Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted, in claiming that Bush's second inaugural cost about $40 million, media ignore the additional costs of security, transportation, and other expenses incurred by federal, state, and local governments in conjunction with the events in 2005 -- which reportedly reached $115.5 million -- while including them in the projections for the 2009 events. When the costs incurred by the federal government and the District of Columbia are factored in, the total cost of Bush's 2005 inauguration was reportedly around $157 million, as Media Matterss enior fellow Eric Boehlert noted. Many media outlets have failed to show any evidence to support their estimates, as Boehlert has also noted.
And while President Obama’s inauguration had millions of people to provide security for, Donald Trump did not. So where is all of that money go?
The money also bought time with the president and vice president — those donating more than $500,000 were treated to dinner with Vice President Pence and his wife, Karen. The highest donors — those spending $1 million or more — gained access to a "Leadership Luncheon," which was "an exclusive event with select Cabinet appointees and House and Senate leadership."
There’s still a lot of money unaccounted for and unfortunately, our laws of transparency in cases like this are pathetic.
Just what other perks and souvenirs their donations helped pay for will probably remain a mystery. While donations must be reported, the Federal Election Commission does not require inaugural committees to account for what they spend or how much is left in their coffers when the revelers head home.
I’m going to speculate here and say that money isn’t going to charity.