What did Donald Trump do today?

He made a (mostly) truthful statement about donating his presidential salary back to the government.

Trump appeared today at a political event to shore up Republicans' chances in a special election to replace former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. (Greene, previously one of Trump's top MAGA lieutenants in Congress, retired abruptly after a falling out with Trump over the Epstein files, accusing him of covering up the crimes of his wealthy friends.) The district is overwhelmingly Republican, and Greene crushed her Democratic opponent by 29 points in 2024, but Trump's deep unpopularity after another year in office is making Republicans—and Trump himself—nervous about even the safest races.

During his speech, Trump made the following claim:

I don't even talk about this much, I get no credit for it. So — as president I make two million dollars over four years, two and a half million. I waived it. And they never, ever talk about it. But every week some of the scum from the New York Times will call, "Did he waive it?" And my secretary will say "Yes, he did." If I ever said "No he didn't" it would be a headline scandal.

It's not true that nobody covers Trump's donation of his salary: Trump himself made sure of that, holding showy White House events on a regular basis to call attention to his "generosity." And it's not true that Trump's salary was $2 or $2.5 million for four years: the salary of the president is $400,000 per year, or $1.6 million per term. But as far as publicly verifiable sources are concerned, it appears to be true that Trump has effectively forgone his presidential salary during his time in office. 

Ignoring the tax benefits that might accrue, this means that Trump has donated about $2 million total.

What else did Donald Trump do today?

He declared that he would be taking $10 billion from the Treasury and depositing it in a fake non-governmental organization that he has lifetime control over.

In an earlier speech at the inaugural meeting of his so-called "Board of Peace," Trump said that he would seize $10 billion in taxpayer dollars and putting it in the organization's accounts. By the "Board's" charters, Trump has essentially unlimited personal authority over the entire organization, and retains it regardless of whether he is president or not. He functionally cannot be removed as the Board's chair, and he can install whoever he likes as his successor. 

In practice, this means the Board is a Trump slush fund. He had attempted, with no verifiable success, to get the dubious collection of member nations to pay $1 billion each as a bribe for membership and access to him. 

Congress has made no such appropriation. It is illegal and unconstitutional for a president to spend money without an appropriation.

The $10 billion in taxpayer money that Trump is threatening to give to the "Board of Peace" is not the same as the $10 billion in taxpayer money that he is demanding from the IRS for "negligence" in allowing his tax returns to be released (during his first term, when he was responsible for it). It's also not the same as the $10 billion he's suing the BBC for because an independent media company edited a single quote in a documentary. Nor is it the same as the taxpayer money he is demanding because the FBI caught him with stolen classified documents after his first term, for which he wants $230 million.

 $10 billion is equivalent to twenty-five thousand years of presidential salary, or the amount of money that a typical American family would accumulate if they'd started making the median annual household income at about the same time that Paleolithic humans made the earliest ceremonial bone etchings ever discovered.

Why does this matter?

• Corruption doesn't get any more obvious than a president taking tens of billions of taxpayer dollars and putting it in his own pocket.

• Acting like you're above the law is a good way to show how much contempt you have for people who obey it.