Donald Trump: Bad Christian, Worse Philanthropist
Donald Trump is not nearly as generous with money as he is with opinions: Between 1990 and 2009 the aspiring presidential candidate gave only $3.7 million of his (purported) billions to his own charity.
Trump, in fact, isn't even the Donald J. Trump Foundation's largest benefactor, as The Smoking Gun reveals; that particular honor goes, appropriately, to World Wrestling Entertainment, which has donated $5 million since 2007. (The foundation, to its credit, is slightly more munificent than Trump himself, giving out $6.7 million since 1990, including a whopping $250 to the Special Olympics, and $1,000 to the "New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Fund," a Scientology-sponsored program for 9/11 first responders and workers who inhaled toxins and/or Thetans released by the destruction of the World Trade Center.)
Trump's apparent reluctance to give may in part explain his a "Muslim problem," as he discussed with the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody; Islam, of course, regards charitable giving as a defining act of faith. To his credit, Trump acknowledges that there's a "very big group of people who really understand the Koran far better than I do"—and yet, even so, he feels confident enough to proffer his opinion that "there's something there that teaches some very negative vibe."
Trump, then, is obviously not a Muslim. He is, he tells Brody, a Christian—a Presbyterian—though apparently not the most regular churchgoer.
Brody: Do you actively go to church?
Trump: Well, I go as much as I can. Always on Christmas. Always on Easter. Always when there's a major occasion. And during the Sundays. I'm a Sunday church person. I'll go when I can.
In related news, a national poll of Republican presidential candidates has Trump tied for first with Mike Huckabee.