https://godanddonaldtrump.com CHAPTER 12 FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY ★★★★★ ON FEBRUARY 2, 2017, almost two weeks after being sworn in as president of the United States, Donald Trump spoke to a crowd of thirty-five hundred at the sixty- fifth annual National Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton hotel. During his remarks he said, “I was blessed to be raised in a churched home. My mother and father taught me that to whom much is given, much is expected. I was sworn in on the very Bible from which my mother would teach us as young children, and that faith lives on in my heart every single day. “The people in this room,” he said, “come from many, many backgrounds. You represent so many religions and so many views. But we are all united by our faith in our Creator and our firm knowledge that we are all equal in His eyes. We are not just flesh and bone and blood. We are human beings with souls. Our republic was formed on the basis that freedom is not a gift from government, but that freedom is a gift from God.”¹
Referring to the words of Jesus in Luke 12:48, the president was affirming that he understood that his gifts and his good fortune were not an entitlement but a responsibility to use his advantages to bless others. This was what his mother had taught him, he said, and it was a principle he had chosen to live by. Whether or not you were for him in the 2016 election, you must admit that Donald Trump believes in the importance of faith and he takes his vow to serve the best interests of the American people very seriously. As I’ve said throughout this book, he doesn’t fit neatly in any category, espe- cially when it comes to his closely held beliefs. But he has made a commendable effort to learn about Christian principles and beliefs, and he has brought together men and women from many denominations and religious expressions to give him counsel and guidance. I have had the privilege of talking to him about such things in my 2016 interview, which I quoted in chapter 9. But how do you evaluate something like that? How do you know what’s in a person’s heart? What a person says about his or her faith is one thing, but we can learn a lot by how the person invests his or her their time and treasure. One measure of the values and beliefs of President Trump can be found in the
executive orders he has given and the ones he has overturned or reversed from Obama’s eight years in office. Under terms of the Congressional Review Act en- acted in 1996, an incoming president has a short window, usually no more than three or four months after the inauguration, to review and undo executive orders and regulations imposed by his predecessor that could interfere with his legisla- tive agenda. The new orders can become law with simple majority votes from the members of Congress. In a flurry of executive action the New York Times referred to as “a historic reversal of government rules,”² President Trump used the provisions of the re- view act as “a regulatory wrecking ball,” signing thirteen bills in record time and effectively erasing executive orders signed by Obama in his last few months in of- fice concerning labor, finance law, Internet privacy, funding for Planned Parent- hood, drug testing, education standards, coal mining, and gun rights. One news report said Trump’s executive action was the most substantial legislative achieve- ment of his first hundred days in office, and the long-term effect would be to boost small business and take the handcuffs off of America’s energy producers.³ His critics claimed Trump was merely deleting Obama’s legacy, but Trump
made it clear throughout his campaign that he believes in free-market capitalism, and he wasted no time overturning policies he and his team believed would im- pede economic development or be an inappropriate invasion of privacy. In his book Great Again, originally published as Crippled America in 2015, Trump offered a fast-paced review of the policy proposals and initiatives he would be discussing in the presidential campaign, and he wrote that a strong and growing economy is essential for a safe and free America. In a chapter on economic issues he says, “I’ve spent my entire life not just making money but, more importantly, learning how to manage my resources and share them with the thousands who have worked for me. To hear our left-wing critics tell it, we need socialism to make this country move forward, and we need a president who can make up the rules as he goes along. If he can’t get Congress to do something, he needs to rule by executive order.” And then he writes, “I say that’s complete nonsense.”⁴ As a small-business owner I know that during the Obama presidency business and industry were almost always penalized by regulations that put employers at a disadvantage. The administration focused more on social issues, gender policy,
climate change, and reversing America’s long-standing partnerships in Europe and the Middle East than on policies to make life easier for American workers and their employers. Evidence of Obama’s anticapitalist bias could be seen in a talk he gave in March 2016 to a group of young people in Argentina. In his candid remarks Obama told the students they shouldn’t worry about the differences between capitalism and Communism—as if there were no difference between them. He said, “just choose from what works,”⁵ ignoring the history of Communist oppres- sion over the past century—including the murder of more than one hundred mil- lion men, women, and children⁶—compared with the unparalleled prosperity that free-market capitalism had given the world. Obama’s words had more relation to Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals than to anything one would expect to hear from an American president. SUPPORT FOR WORTHY CAUSES Obviously speeches and public statements can be helpful in assessing the poli- cies of a president, as well as the person’s character, but there are other ways,
and the kinds of charitable contributions an individual makes can be revealing. The Donald J. Trump Foundation was established as a family charity in 1988. Ac- cording to a report in Forbes magazine, the foundation gave away $10.9 million between 2001 and 2014, with donations to more than four hundred separate char- ities. During that time the main beneficiary was the Police Athletic League (PAL), a New York City charity that works with local police officers to provide summer camps, pre-K programs, and after-school activities for children. According to Forbes, donations from the Trump Foundation totaled more than $832,000 dur- ing that period.⁷ Another report based on IRS records indicated that 36 percent of the founda- tion’s donations went to approximately one hundred organizations promoting health care. More than $465,000 went to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Operation Smile, which offers free surgeries to children born with cleft palates in developing countries. The foundation gave at least $326,000 to New York Presby- terian Hospital and $250,750 to its sister institution, the Hospital for Special Surgery, also in New York.⁸ A story in the New Yorker magazine, despite its overall critical tone, reported
climate change, and reversing America’s long-standing partnerships in Europe and the Middle East than on policies to make life easier for American workers and their employers.
Evidence of Obama’s anticapitalist bias could be seen in a talk he gave in March 2016 to a group of young people in Argentina. In his candid remarks Obama told the students they shouldn’t worry about the differences between capitalism and Communism—as if there were no difference between them. He said, just choose from what works,
⁵ ignoring the history of Communist oppression over the past century—including the murder of more than one hundred million men, women, and children⁶—compared with the unparalleled prosperity that free-market capitalism had given the world. Obama’s words had more relation to Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals than to anything one would expect to hear from an American president.
SUPPORT FOR WORTHY CAUSES
Obviously speeches and public statements can be helpful in assessing the policies of a president, as well as the person’s character, but there are other ways,
and the kinds of charitable contributions an individual makes can be revealing. The Donald J. Trump Foundation was established as a family charity in 1988. According to a report in Forbes magazine, the foundation gave away $10.9 million between 2001 and 2014, with donations to more than four hundred separate charities. During that time the main beneficiary was the Police Athletic League (PAL), a New York City charity that works with local police officers to provide summer camps, pre-K programs, and after-school activities for children. According to Forbes, donations from the Trump Foundation totaled more than $832,000 during that period.⁷
Another report based on IRS records indicated that 36 percent of the foundation’s donations went to approximately one hundred organizations promoting health care. More than $465,000 went to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Operation Smile, which offers free surgeries to children born with cleft palates in developing countries. The foundation gave at least $326,000 to New York Presbyterian Hospital and $250,750 to its sister institution, the Hospital for Special Surgery, also in New York.⁸
A story in the New Yorker magazine, despite its overall critical tone, reported
that many of the foundation’s biggest contributions went to charities such as the Red Cross, the American Cancer Foundation, the United Way, and several hospi- tals. There were also donations to charities associated with golfers such as Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, and Arnold Palmer. In addition, the Trump Foundation made large donations to political and religious organizations. In 2012 the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association received $100,000 from the foundation. In 2013 $50,000 was donated to the American Conservative Union Foundation, part of the conservative lobbying group founded by the late William F. Buckley Jr. In 2014 the foundation gave $100,000 to the Citizens United Foundation, headed by conservative activist David Bossie.⁹ The gifts and grants provided by the foundation board covered a wide range of interests. For example, the foundation gave money to charities that put on galas, including the Celebrity Fight Night Foundation, which hosted an event honoring Muhammad Ali that Trump attended. They supported major golf outings, and the foundation donated $135,000 to charities of past presidents, including $25,000 to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation in 2005 and $110,000 to the William J. Clinton Foundation in 2009 and 2010, just as Hillary Clinton was beginning her
term as secretary of state. Meanwhile Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, an observant Jew, oversaw a foundation that donated more than $500,000 to Jewish causes, including the Museum of Jewish Heritage and the Jewish National Fund.¹⁰ Between 2001 and 2008, before Trump stepped down as an officer of the foun- dation, an estimated 29 percent of its gifts were to healthcare causes. That in- creased to an estimated 42 percent from 2009–2014 when the foundation began making grants from funds contributed by other organizations. During that time foundation grants to “arts and culture” organizations dropped from 11 to 4 per- cent. Even though at this time Trump wasn’t contributing his own cash to the foundation, he directed $100,000 in 2010 to the foundation headed by his son Eric. Eric Trump’s foundation directs most of its giving to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. St. Jude was founded and funded for many years by the late television personality Danny Thomas, and his daughter, Marlo Thomas, serves today as the organization’s national outreach director.¹¹ CHARITY WITH A PERSONAL TOUCH
His detractors like to say Trump is greedy and miserly, but the people who know him best often speak of his generosity. At the Republican National Convention in July 2016, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani said, “I have known Donald Trump for almost thirty years. And he has created and accomplished great things. But beyond that, this is a man with a big heart. Every time New York City suffered a tragedy, Donald Trump was there to help.”¹² Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Lib- erty University, told Fox News host Sean Hannity, “I got to know Donald Trump after he spoke [at Liberty] in 2012.” He said, “Right after he visited here last time . . . I called him about a large Christian ministry in another state that needed some help. I learned within a day or two he had donated $100,000 of his own money.”¹³ Falwell then recounted the story of an inner-city basketball tournament Trump rescued from financial disaster. “He learned about Clyde Frazier Jr. who ran the Harlem Hoops tournament in the inner city and was killed in the 9/11 attacks,” Falwell said. “He searched down the family and he donated the money to keep that tournament going.”¹⁴ There are also many stories of Trump’s unsolicited generosity, including the story reported by Fox News and other media outlets
about Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, who was grabbed by Mexican authorities at the border after making a wrong turn at the Tijuana Port of Entry. The marine was taken into custody and held in a Mexican jail for seven months before a series of commentaries by Fox host Greta Van Susteren, who publicized the case on her nightly news program for several weeks, forced US and Mexican officials to reach a compromise. Shortly after his release, Tahmooressi reported that he had received a gift of $25,000 to help with medical care and treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by his two tours in Afghanistan. That gift came from Donald Trump.¹⁵ In the wake of the devastating floods that ravaged southern Louisiana in Au- gust 2016, Tony Perkins, the president of the Washington-based Family Research Council, told the Christian Post that Donald Trump had made a donation of $100,000 to relief efforts in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Trump and his running mate, Mike Pence, made the trip to the Bayou State to show their support for the families whose lives had been turned upside down. Perkins said he was grateful for their show of support. “I’m grateful Donald Trump visited Louisiana,” he said. “He helped turn the attention of the nation to a devastated region that faces a
very long road to recovery.” At the time, Perkins was serving as interim pastor of Greenwell Springs Baptist Church, which was a hub for distributing supplies and hot meals to displaced residents.¹⁶ More than twenty-six inches of rain fell on the area, flooding the low-lying ter- rain and damaging more than sixty thousand homes. At least thirteen people lost their lives, and more than ten thousand individuals were left homeless. Franklin Graham, who spearheaded relief efforts of his organization, Samaritan’s Purse, was on hand as well, providing meals, clothing, and other essentials for the vic- tims. Graham expressed gratitude for Trump’s visit and led the two candidates on a tour of the area.¹⁷ Along the way they were greeted at several points by groups of people yelling, “Thank you, Mr. Trump,” and, “We knew you would not forget us!”¹⁸ A well-known urban legend, allegedly reported by Forbes as true, was about Trump’s generosity that began with an incident on the New Jersey Turnpike back in 1995. But to me, the fact an urban legend was created shows his reputation for generosity. The story is that one day the limo in which Trump was riding had a flat tire and was forced to the side of the busy multi-lane highway. A passing
motorist, seeing what had just happened, pulled over quickly and jumped out of his car to offer assistance. The man helped Trump’s driver mount the spare tire so the limo could get back on the road, and when the job was finished, Trump asked how he could repay the good Samaritan. The man said, “Just send my wife a bouquet of flowers.” Trump agreed, and true to his word, a beautiful bouquet arrived a few weeks later with a note saying, “We’ve paid off your mortgage.”¹⁹ While that story may not be true, there are many that are true. One of the most touching, which was reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, happened back in 1986 when farmers in Burke County, Georgia, were suffering through the worst farm disaster since the Great Depression. Through the long drought, crops had failed, and after struggling to make ends meet, Leonard Dozier Hill III realized he was going to lose the farm where his family had lived for three generations. The property was under foreclosure and was going to be auctioned off on the court- house steps. Hill couldn’t bear the thought, and believing his life insurance would be enough to settle the debt, the sixty-seven-year-old farmer committed suicide.²⁰ Unfortunately Hill’s insurance policy simply wasn’t large enough to cover the
debt, and his death was a crushing blow to his widow, Annabel Hill, and their family. When Hill’s neighbors heard what had happened, they were angry, and someone painted “Farmer Killer” on the walls of the local bank.²¹ When Donald Trump saw the news reports about the incident, he got in touch with Mrs. Hill and told her he would take steps to delay the foreclosure. Then he contacted WNBC radio talk show host Don Imus and asked his friend to help the Hill family tell its story in hopes of raising the money it needed. Trump tried to keep his in- volvement a secret, but the news eventually leaked out, and at that point Trump decided to get more involved publicly. As he related in The Art of the Deal the following year, Trump called the bank that held the Hills’ mortgage and asked for relief for the Hill family. But the bank vice president told him they were going to auction off the property and said, “Nothing or no one is going to stop it.” At that, Trump’s tone suddenly changed. He said, “You listen to me. If you do foreclose, I’ll personally bring a lawsuit for murder against you and your bank on the grounds that you harassed Mrs. Hill’s husband to his death.” It didn’t take long for the banker to take a more concil- iatory tone.²²
Mrs. Hill and her daughter were able to raise about $20,000 through their ap- pearances on the Don Imus radio program, which certainly helped, but it wasn’t enough to cover the full amount. So Trump and another businessman pitched in, and they eventually raised over $100,000, which was more than enough to cover the remaining amount of the mortgage. After the account was settled, Trump brought Mrs. Hill and her daughter to New York for a Christmas Eve mortgage- burning ceremony in the atrium of Trump Tower.²³ WHEN HOPE IS NEEDED On January 18, 2017, two days before Donald Trump was to be sworn in as Amer- ica’s forty-fifth president, I was in Washington, DC, to attend the inauguration when I happened to read a story in the Washington Post about a young man named Shane Bouvet, a single parent from a small town in Illinois who had been invited to attend the inauguration. There were color photos with the story, and it looked interesting, so before leaving my hotel room to go into the District, I sat down and began reading. The young man in the story had grown up in the rural community of Stonington, Illinois. He said he had watched as factories and the
local mine were shut down, as jobs disappeared, and as the hopes and dreams of his neighbors faded away. He worked as a night watchman and FedEx driver, but it was tough making ends meet. “I get tired of seeing people hit rock bottom,” he told the Post reporter. “If you go to the coffee shops, the old guys talk about the old days when engines roared and things weren’t built in China.”²⁴ The story went on to tell how Bouvet was drawn to Trump’s message during the primary, how he volunteered to hand out signs and stickers, and how he used his knowledge of social media to help spread the word. He was highly motivated, and it was apparent he had an aptitude for it. Bouvet was soon named coordi- nator for social media in Illinois, and his diligence and passion were rewarded with an invitation to attend the Great American Inaugural Ball at the MGM resort hotel near Washington, DC. The only problem was that he didn’t have clothes for an event like that. But hearing about Bouvet’s predicament, a former teacher bought him a new suit and a nice pair of shoes so Bouvet would have a chance to shake hands with the new president.²⁵ Well, it was a nice story, but what happened next came as a complete surprise. It turns out Donald Trump had read the story as well and arranged to have the
young man join him in the green room prior to the big pre-inauguration concert on the evening of January 19. When I opened my copy of the Post the next morn- ing, I saw the sequel to that first article, and this time the reporter told the rest of Bouvet’s story. He spent the most memorable evening of his life, it said, as a guest of the president-elect, hanging out with Reince Priebus, Stephen Bannon, and Melania Trump. They posed for photos and even gave Bouvet a round of ap- plause. Trump said, “This is the greatest guy.” Then before leaving the green room, the president placed a hand on Bouvet’s shoulder and told an aide, “Send him a check for $10,000.” After that, the Post story reported, Shane Bouvet broke down and cried.²⁶ I’m glad I saw those stories because they gave me a better sense of who Don- ald Trump really is. But even with touching episodes like those, the media con- tinue to portray Trump in negative terms, often calling him a racist and bigot. In fact, Trump has a history of helping individuals struggling with difficult circum- stances, regardless of race or gender. One example is the story of the sixty-nine- year-old homeless black woman who stepped in to try and protect Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in October 2016. When Denise
Scott saw the man, identified later as James Otis, pulverizing Trump’s star on Hollywood Boulevard with a pickax, she demanded that he stop what he was doing. But it was too late, and the star was damaged beyond repair.²⁷ Nevertheless, Scott said, “I’m gonna stay here and watch this and make sure nobody touches it.” But as a crowd of young people and loud anti-Trumpers began gathering around her, a man grabbed the hand-printed signs she had been carrying that said Obama had failed the homeless and “Vote for Trump,” and he ripped them to pieces. While tourists, locals, and the media looked on, Scott was shoved, punched, and cursed, and she eventually threw herself on the ground, covering Trump’s star to protect it from further damage.²⁸ When a cell-phone video of the incident showed up on YouTube, many people were outraged. Before long word about what had happened reached Donald Trump, and he said he wanted to give Scott a special gift. Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, went to work and said Scott would have “the last laugh on these thugs.”²⁹ But first they had to find her somewhere on the streets of Los Angeles because Scott had no known address. Eventually the director of an outreach pro- gram for the homeless located her, and a GoFundMe page was set up to help
Scott improve her circumstances. Assistance began pouring in, and the Go- FundMe page reported, “Denise is safe and healthy and is very excited about all the tremendous support!”³⁰ WHERE OTHERS HAVE FAILED In his inaugural address President Trump outlined his vision for America and made promises concerning the goals he hoped to accomplish during his tenure. He said, “At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America, and through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other. When you open your heart to patriotism,” he said, “there is no room for prejudice.” He added, “The Bible tells us ‘how good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity.’”³¹ But it was painfully clear, even as he spoke those words, that this is a divided nation and the dream of unity is still a long way off. Perhaps the greatest threats to unity are not the challenges from abroad but threats from men and women in our own country who are determined to dismantle our democracy and decon- struct our heritage of freedom and self-determination. Among them are the
teachers and professors in America’s universities who proudly declare them- selves to be Marxists or anarchists, indoctrinating impressionable students and undermining the hope of peaceful coexistence. President Abraham Lincoln said in his Lyceum address in 1838 that America’s power and unity of purpose had made this country an invincible force. No foreign power would have the slightest chance of defeating us, he said, but he warned that alien forces in our midst could be a great danger. He said, “At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”³² It would be another twenty-three years before American unity would be shattered by the Civil War, but Lincoln could hardly have imagined that social and political differences in the twenty-first cen- tury would become such a hostile battleground. Goodwill, compassion for others, and acts of charity mean very little to men and women who repudiate our history and focus only on the dark moments of America’s past. It’s not surprising that so many of this country’s academic and
intellectual elites—including the men and women in the media—are repelled by Donald Trump’s agenda. Faith, freedom, and charity are nowhere on their list of priorities, and it seems that nothing short of a miracle and a spiritual renewal will ever shake them from their skepticism and doubt. While the president acknowledged the divisions in the country in his inaugural address, he said, “We must speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly, but always pursue solidarity. When America is united, America is totally unstoppable.” Then he added, “There should be no fear. We are protected, and we will always be protected. We will be protected by the great men and women of our military and law enforcement, and most importantly we will be protected by God.”³³ The applause he received for those words was sincere because it was precisely that kind of hope and faith that brought him to the White House. We can only pray that his faith will be rewarded and by some miracle what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature”³⁴ will prevail.