I pride myself on being able to focus on nuts and bolts of implementation. With that in mind, I'll offer a small defense of Donald Trump. The story briefly: he holds a fundraiser for vets early in the year, claims to have raised $6 million, of which $1 million came from him. The media, notably the Post, pressed him on who and when, and yesterday he announced the details. It turns out he didn't write his check until last week. The mean-minded, which often includes me, take that as a sign he wouldn't have given without the media attention.
That's surely one story which fits the known facts. But there's an alternative version of what might have happened. Trump does the fundraiser without really planning the details of implementation. He does intend to make the donation. What I haven't seen yet is the details of the handling of the money, whether donors wrote checks to the recipients or whether the money was routed through a checking account. It's also not clear who determined the recipients--Trump, his aides, or the donors. Once the media got on his case, Trump's people slapped together what was revealed at the news conference.
Bottomline: While I won't convict Trump of lying about the donations, I will say there's a strong case he and his people were inefficient bureaucrats, proving they fail at implementation.
For the
bad case see TPM
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