White House Says Trump Will Donate $1 Million To Harvey And Basically No One Believes It

During a press briefing at the White House on Thursday, Aug. 31, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced that President Donald Trump will donate $1 million to Hurricane Harvey relief, personally. This is a great gesture as Texas and Louisiana work on recovering from the historic storm. But there's just one teensy issue: Very few people believe that Trump will actually donate the money.

The organizations helping the victims of Hurricane Harvey need donations. Of course, $1 million from anybody, including from the president, will help. Sanders said he will decide which organizations to give to based on reporters' input. Elite Daily reached out to the White House to see if there is a timeline for this donation.

We all know Trump likes talking about money — including the money he has and the money he spends. He likes going around saying he'll give "major" donations. But Trump has a problem with following through on those donations. This is a topic that has been heavily investigated by reporter David Fahrenthold at the Washington Post, who actually won a Pulitzer Prize this year for that reporting.

Last Fall, Fahrenthold contacted over 400 charities with ties to Trump to see if he actually gave them any money. Between 2008 and spring 2016, the Post only found one personal gift from Trump, which was less than $10,000 to the Police Athletic League of New York City in 2009. As of October 2016, Fahrenthold identified $7.8 million donated by Trump. Of that $7.8 million, $5.5 million went to the Trump Foundation. Of course, a couple million in donations is more than most Americans give, but the criticism comes because it's minuscule compared to the amount of money Trump claims he will donate.

Back in January 2016, for instance, Trump said he raised $6 million for veterans' causes during a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa. This included $1 million he would personally donate. Five months later, that donation didn't appear, so Fahrenthold reported, documenting his work on Twitter. Once that started up, Trump coincidentally announced where his million would go.

So, yeah, Trump doesn't have the best track record with following through on his donations, and Twitter is understandably skeptical of this Harvey donation.

I'm with the angry tweeters on this one. It's a nice gesture, but I'll believe it when I see it -- and, truly, I'd love to be proved wrong here for the sake of hurting Texans.