Whereas Donald Trump took credit score for bringing truckloads of provides to hurricane-ravaged Georgia final month, it seems that the one factor he delivered to Valdosta that day was site visitors and a first-responder diversion from the reduction effort.
“Today I’ve come to Valdosta with large semi-trucks, many of them filled with relief aid, and a tanker truck filled up with gasoline. We have a couple of the big tanker trucks filled up with gasoline,” the coup-attempting former president stated Sept. 30 in entrance of a destroyed furnishings retailer in Valdosta.
Trump’s marketing campaign later despatched out a press launch headlined, “President Trump Delivers Relief, Support To Hurricane-Ravaged South,” which then acknowledged: “President Trump delivered relief supplies to aid in the hurricane’s devastating aftermath: ‘We have a lot of truckloads of different items, from oil to water to all sorts of equipment that’s going to help … We’re here today to stand in complete solidarity with the people of Georgia and with all of those suffering.’”
In actuality, these vehicles have been introduced by Samaritan’s Purse, a charity run by the pastor Franklin Graham. They have been already there by the point Trump flew to the native airport after which rode into city in his Secret Service motorcade, in keeping with residents.
That motorcade and the elevated safety wanted at Trump’s photograph alternative required 42 officers from the Georgia State Patrol, in keeping with paperwork from that company obtained by HuffPost.
A smaller variety of Valdosta law enforcement officials and deputies from the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Workplace additionally supplied site visitors management on the city’s intersections throughout Trump’s go to, stated Mayor Scott James Matheson. He acknowledged that these officers couldn’t proceed with reduction and cleanup efforts whereas they have been detailed to Trump’s go to.
Not desirous to intervene with cleanup efforts, in truth, was the explanation President Joe Biden cited for ready to go to till roads have been open and quick wants taken care of. It was the identical cause Trump’s personal vitality secretary, Rick Perry, cited in 2017 when he defined why then-President Trump had not visited Houston after Hurricane Harvey.
“He really wanted to be where there were citizens being affected. He was advised: the better place for you to go is Corpus Christi or San Antonio or Austin, where no search and rescue resources would be pulled away from what they’re doing,” Perry stated.
Trump’s marketing campaign defended the timing of the go to to Valdosta. “He met with the volunteers. He shook their hands,” stated spokesperson Karoline Leavitt.
Michael M. Santiago through Getty Photos
Leavitt additional insisted that Trump was, in truth, accountable for delivering the provides. “He didn’t misspeak at all,” she stated, including that Trump may rightfully take credit score for these provides as a result of he had began a GoFundMe on-line marketing campaign for Hurricane Helene victims and had donated to Graham’s charity.
“He’s donated millions to Samaritan’s Purse,” Leavitt stated.
She wouldn’t element when these donations occurred, nor would she say how a lot — if something ― Trump had personally given to the Helene GoFundMe. His identify doesn’t seem on the record of the GoFundMe marketing campaign’s high donors, who had contributed between $15,000 and $500,000 as of Friday.
In September 2017, after criticism within the press for the way Trump’s inaugural committee had spent the $107 million it had raised primarily from rich people and company donors, it introduced it was giving $1 million every to 3 storm-related charities: the Pink Cross, the Salvation Military and Samaritan’s Purse.
That $1 million reward to Graham’s charity, nevertheless, was not Trump’s cash, and he was not permitted by regulation to maintain any of it for private use.
Samaritan’s Purse declined to substantiate whether or not Trump had donated something to the group utilizing his personal cash, citing its coverage to not disclose donors. The group runs a well-organized hurricane reduction operation that for Helene dispatched tractor-trailer vehicles crammed with provides to Florida, Georgia and North Carolina. The reduction to Valdosta was despatched on Sept. 29 and staged in a church about 3 miles north of the spot Trump visited the next afternoon.
Trump’s tax data launched by the Home Methods and Means Committee in 2022 and given to The New York Instances by his niece, Mary Trump, in the meantime, present that the overwhelming majority of Trump’s charitable donations by twenty years have been within the type of conservation easements — guarantees that he won’t develop land he already owns.
A lot of the $11 million in money he donated to charities between 2005 and 2020 got here as he was working for president in 2015 and 2016 and in his first 12 months in workplace. In 2017, he reported $1.9 million in money donations — the recipients aren’t listed within the types launched by the Home committee — and that quantity fell to $500,000 in 2018 and $505,000 in 2019. In 2020, he reported giving zero.
It’s potential Trump gave thousands and thousands to charities, together with Samaritan’s Purse, however didn’t declare a tax deduction for the presents. If Trump did certainly take credit score for charitable work in Valdosta that he had nothing to do with, nevertheless, it will not be the primary time.
In 1996, Trump confirmed up at a ribbon-cutting for a brand new nursery faculty in New York constructed for kids affected by AIDS. He obtained up on stage and took the seat of somebody who was an precise main donor to the Affiliation to Profit Youngsters. Trump had not given the group a dime however pretended that he had.
The Washington Put up article in 2016 that exposed the nursery faculty episode additionally discovered that Trump continuously boasted of charitable donations that he had by no means made and that he had a historical past of utilizing his “Trump Foundation” charity for paying private and enterprise payments.
In 2019, he was compelled to close down the inspiration, pay a $2 million advantageous and conform to restrictions on his capacity to function a charity in New York State going ahead as a part of a settlement with the state’s lawyer basic. Additional, his eldest three youngsters, who have been on the inspiration’s board, needed to endure charity management coaching.
Trump is working to win again the White Home after dropping reelection in 2020. Since Hurricane Helene slammed into Florida after which flooded sections of a number of states to the north, he has been spreading quite a few lies about President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ response to the storm.
Matheson stated Thursday he had no downside with Trump’s go to and the police assets it consumed due to the eye it helped convey to the devastation his city had suffered.
“All the cameras he brought … he helped tell our story,” Matheson stated. “We were taking any attention we could.”
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Trump was not the primary main political determine to go to, Matheson added. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Democratic Sen. John Ossoff each visited two days earlier, on Sept. 28. Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Biden visited on Oct. 3.
Matheson stated he rode with Biden in his armored SUV to go to a flattened pecan farm on the outskirts of city and thanked the president for granting federal grant cash with out the requirement of a neighborhood match for storm restoration.
“My ride with him was just a thank you ride,” he stated.
