Grovelling for Dollars: A Journey to the Pit of Hell With Donald Trump
Bloated spawn of a Penn Station ashtray and Nickelodeon slime Donald Trump spent the afternoon holed up in Trump Tower hosting a massive money booth, filled with hundreds of people trying to grab at the sweaty dollars blowing around them. Sort of, anyway. After the Don announced via Twitter this morning that he would be giving away suitcases full of cash, close to a thousand people descended on the Trump Tower lobby to try for the giveaways. Turns out, this sudden bout of generosity has less to do with a kind heart and everything to do with the launch of a new crowdfunding scam called FundAnything.
We dispatched Victor Jeffreys II, Gawker's new photo editor, to the Tower to see what he could see. When Trump arrived, he tells us, he wandered through the screaming throng mumbling to no one, to everyone, "What's yer problem? What's yer problem? Do you need money?" People waved pictures of their kids at him; some cried.
[There was a video here]
Trump selected a handful of people and whisked them away to a downstairs room, filled with press and cameras. Standing in front of a podium in front of the considerably smaller crowd, Trump played three different videos. Each featured a different person in need of Trump's cash. The first told the story of a family, unable to pay their medical bills, supporting a family member with cancer; the second showed small business owner, a woman struggling to run her "educational business" in Albany; the third, an aspiring 20-something singer trying to cover production and touring costs. Trump then brought the stars of the videos out on stage and gave each a suitcase full of money with different amounts: $40,000 went to the wife of the man with lung cancer, (he was unable to accept the cash in person because, according to FundAnything co-founder Bill Zanker, "He is in the ICU in Canada waiting for a lung"); $15,000 to the business owner; and $25,000 to the singer. Below are the FundAnything suitcases full of cash:
Then came the checks. A security team assembled the small group from the lobby into a kind of line. Trump then asked each of them directly, "Do you need money? What's your problem?" The answers varied from "My mother is sick with cancer" to "I'm behind on my rent." After distilling the ten greatest sob stories from the pack, he began to sign and give away $5,000 checks. "Give it to your mother," he said to one. "Don't spend it all in one place," he jokingly warned another. Here is a photo of Trump signing checks:
After all ten checks had been doled out, Trump and his team left the room and retreated back to the lobby where a large aquarium full of money was waiting. Babes in FundAnything tank tops guarded the tank.
Security again assembled this new crowd into a line. They were then invited to file by the tank and grab as many bills—ranging from dollar bills to hundreds—as they could hold. No bags were allowed, fists only. Children rushed by clutching wads to their chest while security worked to keep people in check. People screamed at Trump from the balcony above.
And just as quickly and chaotically as it started, it was over.
Trump has since taken to Twitter to encourage everyone to go to FundAnything immediately and submit a proposal for their campaign. The site's motto reads: Raise Money for Anything. Always wanted to start a company that exclusively sells food-scented medical exam gloves? Now you can. Never had the funds to get your vegan hot dog truck off the ground? Problem solved. Let's all right NOW go to FundAnything and submit our (soon to be) Trump-backed dreams. I personally will be submitting a proposal for my new startup—a traveling gay marriage service that, for every marriage donates one birth control-laced legal marijuana cigarette to a freeloading commie—called Jews4BarackObama.
[All images by Victor Jeffreys II]