Donald Trump is hawking Bibles. Michael Harris writes:
It wasn’t cologne.
It wasn’t those $399 Never Surrender gold high-top running shoes.
It wasn’t a T-shirt featuring Teflon Don’s mugshot.
It wasn’t even dubious steaks, or third-rate wine.
It was the Bible. And Pastor Trump was making it available in Holy Week.
I doubt Mr. Trump has spent much time in its pages. But Donald's legal bills are piling up. And now that his daughter-in-large is in charge at the Republican National Committee, she's made it clear that any funds the organization raises will go first to pay those bills. But that will not be enough:
The quadruple-indicted presidential candidate, facing 88 felony counts, has exhibited his endlessly imaginative financial genius yet again. He has figured out a way to monetize God.
Only one thing was missing from his greasy sales pitch. Anyone who really wants a Bible can go online and get one for free. Mind you, it won’t be endorsed by Pastor Trump.
No one should be surprised at Trump’s latest display of scuzzy fundraising for his favourite cause: himself.
This is the guy who dipped into his own charity for personal expenditures, including money to buy his own portrait. The Donald J. Trump Foundation was closed down by court order in 2018. A year later, Trump was fined $2-million for misusing charitable donations.
This is the guy who had to fork over big bucks in damages after the Trump University fiasco. Trump University promised to teach students the “secrets of success” in real estate. Instead, the students were fleeced. A federal court finalized a cash award to the students of $25-million. Trump University is now defunct.
This is the guy who solicited money for his official legal defence fund after losing the 2020 election. It turned out that the fund never existed. But that didn’t stop his Save America political action committee from raking in millions of dollars by “hitting up” what Amanda Carpenter of the bulwark.com called Trump’s “gullible admirers.”
Mark Twain knew a lot about con men. He knew that the most successful among them posed as men of the cloth -- and that they became rich because, as he wrote in Huckleberry Finn, "the fools are the majority in any town."
Image: The Hill Times
