Face it. Donald Trump could find a cure for cancer, end world hunger, and devastate ISIS, and liberals would still find an excuse for dumping on him.
As a demonstration of the maxim that no good deed goes unpunished, consider the reaction by the media — mainstream and social — to the president’s making good on a campaign promise. As reported by Reuters:
President Donald Trump, who made a fortune in real estate before running for political office, has decided to donate his first-quarter salary of $78,333 to the National Park Service, the White House announced on Monday.
During the presidential campaign, Trump said he would donate his $400,000 annual salary if he were elected.
Why the Park Service? Here’s White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer to explain:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
In some quarters, Trump would be hailed as a mensch for his magnanimous gesture. Those quarters do not include The New York Times, whose Peter Baker took Trump to task first for having said initially that he “would donate his salary to charity at the end of the year and suggested he would even allow reporters to decide the beneficiary.”
But that’s the least of Trump’s sins:
[I]n picking a government agency, Mr. Trump chose one with a large backlog of deferred maintenance that could be deferred even longer under his budget. Mr. Trump proposed a cut of $1.5 billion, or 12 percent, from the Interior Department, which oversees the park service and other agencies. The proposal did not specify how much of that would come out of the park service budget.
He also chose an agency with which he has had a fraught relationship. Mr. Trump was angry when a park service employee using an agency Twitter account reposted information comparing the size of his Inauguration Day crowd unfavorably with that of former President Barack Obama in 2009.
Twitter users were less restrained in their contempt for Trump. Here are a couple representative examples of the messages they saw fit to post this morning:
UPDATED: $78,000 Trump’s salary donation to gov’t.
$30,750,000: est cost for Melania to stay in Trump Tower through 75 days. #FactsMatter
— State of Resistance (@AltStateDpt) April 4, 2017
Media is falling for Trump PR stunt of donating $70k paycheck to National Park Service. It costs $3 million each time he visits Mar-a-Lago.
— Kaivan Shroff (@KaivanShroff) April 3, 2017
These are the same people who during the 2016 election season could be seen at Hillary Clinton rallies holding up signs reading “Love Trumps hate.”
Can you feel the love?
