Veterans’ Groups Line up to Reject Money from Trump (if He is Even Raising Any)

Trump’s standard line when he is about to storm out of a media event because he doesn’t like how it covers him is that he is going to go host an event to raise money for veterans. Thus it was no surprise when he announced that he would be skipping the FoxNews event to hold a separate event to raise money for… well, “veterans,” generally. Of course, Trump did not name a specific charity so that his feet might be held to the fire on this, just “veterans,” generally.

Well, there are two small problems. The main veterans group that Trump has used for publicity stunts in the past, the Wounded Warrior Project, was the subject of a scathing CBS report and recently lost their tax exempt status. Besides, if Trump is planning on using them, he hasn’t told anyone from the group. Per CNN, the Wounded Warrior Project has not even been contacted by Trump about possibly doing an event tomorrow.

If he is doing it for some other group, they are now lining up to say that they don’t want any money Trump might make off of promoting himself, and will reject it if offered.

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America founder Paul Rieckhoff tweeted Wednesday that he would decline any contributions that came from the event, which Trump has proposed in place of his attending Fox News’ debate this week.

“If offered, @IAVA will decline donations from Trump’s event. We need strong policies from candidates, not to be used for political stunts,” he said.

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Two other veterans’ groups also distanced themselves from Trump’s announcement.

The Wounded Warrior Project said it was not aware of the candidate conducting any fundraising efforts on its behalf.

Meanwhile, VoteVets.org, which calls itself the nation’s largest progressive veterans group, issued a statement titled: “Don’t hide from Megyn Kelly behind us.”

Trump has tried to tie fundraising for veterans with debates in the past. He said he had considered skipping CNN debates in September and December unless the network donated to veterans’ groups.

Vote Vets is of course a lefty group, but the other two announcements are telling. Money is money, and if groups are pre-emptively declining it, that’s a pretty good indication of just how tired of Donald Trump’s crap the vast majority of the country is getting.

Of course, all of this assumes that Trump had any plans of giving the money to Veterans in the first place, as opposed to just saying that he was going to so that his temper tantrum would look more noble.

Thanks to our commenter TNGal for finding this story.

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