Trump CNBC Remarks Parsed; Trump Donations to His Own Foundation Questioned
TAPPER: Welcome back THE LEAD. Let's stay with politics. While the world has been focused upon Hillary Clinton's stumbles, literally and figuratively, Donald Trump this morning went on CNBC and he made several outrageous statements. He continues to refer to a sitting U.S. senator whose Native American roots have been questioned as Pocahontas. With zero evidence, he accused the Fed chair of not being independent and intentionally keeping interest rates low to help President Obama. And he suggested that the pending presidential debates would be rigged and unfair to him. "They're gaming the system," he said, suggesting that there should be a debate with no moderator. Mr. Trump made that last claim out of apparent concern that moderators would be extra tough on him after criticism of NBC's Matt Lauer not sufficiently fact-checking Mr. Trump. One investigative reporter determined to fact-check Mr. Trump has looked into Mr. Trump's claims about charitable giving, and he faced a tough task, since the billionaire will not release his tax returns or list his charitable contributions made before this year. For months now, "Washington Post" reporter David Fahrenthold has reached out to more than 300 charities to see how much money the self- described billionaire has been donated, recording it with good old- fashioned pen and paper. David joins me now with his eye-opening look into his finding. David, thanks so much for being here. Congratulations on all the hard work. By your calculations, how much of Mr. Trump's own money has he donated to charity?</s>DAVID FAHRENTHOLD, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Now, between the end of 2008 and this May, I found one donation out of his own pocket. That was for less than $10,000 back in 2009.</s>TAPPER: One?</s>FAHRENTHOLD: One.</s>TAPPER: And you have called and reached out to how many charities?</s>FAHRENTHOLD: Three hundred and twenty-six charities so far.</s>TAPPER: And you have reached out to the campaign and asked for help. And?</s>FAHRENTHOLD: A number of times.</s>TAPPER: CNN looked at the tax records for the Trump Foundation, found Trump has not donated to his charity, his own charity, since 2008, the Donald J. Trump Foundation. You had a blockbuster report over the weekend about the foundation. From your reporting, what should voters know about the Donald J. Trump Foundation?</s>FAHRENTHOLD: The most important thing is, it doesn't contain any of Donald J. Trump's money. In the world of philanthropy, if you start a foundation with your name on it, it's expected that the money in it is yours. But, as you said, Trump hasn't given any money to his own foundation since '08. Instead, he fills it with other people's money, and then he gives it away to people who are under the impression that it's actually Trump's.</s>TAPPER: And then they give him recommendation for his charitable donations.</s>FAHRENTHOLD: They give him awards. And, more importantly for his business, they give him business. Trump's business at Mar-a-Lago in Florida depends on renting out his club to big charities, who can pay as much as $270,000 per night to rent it out. So, this helps him stay in the good graces of those charities without actually having to spend any of his own money.</s>TAPPER: What is the difference between the Donald J. Trump Foundation and the Clinton Foundation?</s>FAHRENTHOLD: They are two really different animals. The Clinton Foundation is a really large organization, has about a staff of over 2,000. It actually does direct charitable work and employs people who do charitable work. And the questions are favors that Hillary Clinton might have given to the donors to that foundation. Trump's foundation, by contrast, has only ever had, at most, like $3 million. It only has about a million dollars in it now. It has no staff. Its board is just the Trumps and one other person. It's basically just something that exists on paper to pass money through.</s>TAPPER: In order for him to get recognition and then to rent out the Mar-a-Lago Hotel?</s>FAHRENTHOLD: That's possible. It's also -- he lives in sort of a social world in Palm Beach, where it's important to be seen as being charitable. Often, he wants to sort of make a flourish of saying, I'm going to give my money away. A good example in on the "Celebrity Apprentice." When he was the host of that, he would often say, you, celebrity, I'm going to give you a donation out of my own pocket. And in those cases, it was also other people's money that he eventually used to give to those folks.</s>TAPPER: You're on the hunt right now for two things, a $20,000 portrait of Donald Trump and a Broncos helmet autographed by Tim Tebow. Why are you looking for those things?</s>FAHRENTHOLD: Well, the IRS rules prohibit people who run foundations from using the charity's money to buy things for themselves, for obvious reason. These are two things that Donald Trump used his charity's money to buy for himself. He bought -- paid $12,000 for a Tim Tebow-signed Broncos helmet at an auction in 2012. And in 2007, we just learned he used $20,000 to buy a portrait of himself. Now, you're not allowed to buy those things and put them up in your house, put them up in your businesses if you used charity money. So we're trying to find out what has become of those items.</s>TAPPER: And needless to say, the Trump campaign and the Trump Organization have not been helpful in your pursuit?</s>FAHRENTHOLD: No.</s>TAPPER: You're like Indiana Jones. David Fahrenthold, thank you so much. Keep in touch. Keep up the great work. A shaky Syrian cease-fire now just about five hours in, is it holding? Can humanitarian aid get to those who desperately need it? That's next. Plus, he's an Oscar Award-winning actor who spends his free time tracking down corruption in Africa. George Clooney joins me to explain ahead.