Reactions to today’s White House press conference, where presidential physician Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson declared President Trump in “excellent health,” continued to come hard and fast Tuesday evening, as social media and the major news networks alike scoffed at the notion that Trump is as fit as reported.
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The most glaring aspect of the president’s medical assessment came in the form of his purported height and weight. Besides miraculously growing an inch in his 60s (his most recent driver’s license lists him at 6’2″, but today’s report has him at 6’3″) the president’s weight seemed to be vastly under stated to most observers.
Chris Hayes at MSNBC had the quote of the day when he dubbed people who challenged the president’s weight and his overall “excellent’ bill of health “Girthers” – a brilliant play on Trump’s disgraced “birther” crusade to prove President Obama was born in Africa – and a hashtag and movement were instantly born.
James Gunn, the director of Guardians of the Galaxy, took to Twitter to join the nascent #GirtherMovement taking social media by storm, but with a hilarious twist:
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I will give 100 thousand dollars to Trump's favorite charity if he will step on an accurate scale with an impartial medical professional, okayed by both of us. For real. #Girther #GirtherMovement
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) January 17, 2018
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Despite his constant boasting (lying?) to the contrary, Trump isn’t big on charity by any measure, and certainly hasn’t given away anywhere near what he claimed during the campaign.
The New Yorker did an in-depth analysis of his charitable giving going back 25 years from the 2016 presidential campaign, and what they found was stunning:
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So what is the bottom line? Even including the $1 million Trump donated to veterans earlier this year (after prodding from [pulitzer prize winning journalist] David Fahrenthold), the public records indicate that, over the past quarter of a century, he has given away less than $5 million of his own money. According to his own estimate, he is worth in excess of $10 billion. If we take him at his word, that means his charitable contributions come to about 0.05 per cent of his fortune, or five cents for every $100.
In other words, as generous as James Gunn’s offer is, don’t expect it to entice Trump to incriminate himself over something as central to his vanity as his weight. It’s going to take a lot more than a charitable donation to do that.
Unless that charity is the now defunct Trump Foundation, then maybe…
