What did Donald Trump do today?
He said an anonymous "friend" was donating money for the military salaries he refuses to allow Congress to fund.
Today was the 24th day of the latest Trump shutdown, already the second-longest shutdown in American history. (The longest was Trump's, too.) Most government workers missed their first full paycheck today, including those that are required to continue working during the shutdown.
Legally, Trump doesn't get to pick and choose which government services are shut down, or which workers get paid. The Constitution specifically requires that no money can be spent that hasn't been appropriated by Congress. But Trump has demanded that money, including salaries, continue to flow to certain programs and employees in spite of the law. This appears to be a strategy of political survival for Trump, whose approval ratings are at their lowest point in his presidency, with another massive crisis about to hit Americans' pocketbooks in just a few days.
The reason the government shuts down when appropriations bills expire is not because it doesn't have money—it does. Taxes are still being collected and bonds being sold. Rather, it's because presidents do not get to decide for themselves what the budget is. That's not just a core principle of democracy—the idea that kings shouldn't have direct and unchallenged personal control over the treasury is something that wars have been fought over in out-and-out monarchies.
That brings us to today, when Trump insisted that a story he told yesterday, about an anonymous "friend" donating $130 million to cover the salaries of military personnel, was actually true. Again, the issue is not that the federal government can't afford to pay its workers—it's that Trump has failed to get appropriations bills passed through a Congress his party controls.
There is, to say the least, a lot of skepticism that Trump's "friend" or any such donation really exists, although the Department of Defense and the White House claimed that such a gift had been accepted—and then refused further comment.
Among the questions neither Trump nor his administration would answer today:
- whether the "friend" actually existed
- what the name of the "friend" is
- whether the "friend" is an American citizen
- whether the "friend" was donating their own money, or acting on behalf of a third party
- whether the payment was in the form of actual money, or the supposed dollar value of the crypto tokens Trump makes a profit from in fees every time they are traded
- whether it was an actual irrevocable gift to the Treasury, or some kind of loan or advance tax
- what the "friend" expected in return
- whether the "friend" has a business relationship with Trump
- how paying salaries Congress hasn't appropriated money for doesn't violate the Antideficiency Act, which explicitly forbids having private individuals pay for lapsed appropriations
- why Trump is pressuring the Republican-controlled House to stay out of session, which keeps it from passing bills to fund the government legally
- whether Trump's "friend" actually believed the government needed money, as opposed to an appropriations bill
If it were legal for private individuals to sponsor military paychecks, $130 million would cover about eight hours' worth.
Why does this matter?
- Trump hallucinating another conversation where a "friend" gave him good news, and then the federal government lying to protect him from embarrassment, is the least problematic possibility here.
- The American people don't need "gifts" from Trump's "friends" to fund their government, but they do need a president willing to govern under the law.
- Trump is not a king, his billionaire "friends" are not the nobility, and even if they were this would still be an insane way to run a country.