Chump or Cheater? Rachel Maddow Makes Some Very Harsh Accusations Of Donald Trump
Rachel Maddow made some potentially very offensive remarks about Donald Trump on Tuesday night’s edition of The Rachel Maddow Show. Rachel focused on Trump’s recent public appearance at a fundraiser for a veteran’s group that was later shown to be phony, and her coverage included the extreme allegations that Trump is either “in on some kind of scheme” or that he “just got duped and taken for a ride.”
Maddow explained that Trump said in his speech the veteran’s group he was raising money for, called “Veterans for a Strong America,” had over 100,000 members and was completely legitimate. However, Rachel explained, it was actually an organization that had previously been stripped of its non-profit status and that only consisted of one person – the chairman, Joel Arends.
Rachel continued that she was not sure if Trump was being deceptive or just incompetent when he decided to help raise money at the event. After all, Rachel said, tickets to see Donald speak cost $100 to $1,000.
“Something just didn’t seem right about Donald Trump calling this a group with hundreds of thousands of people and doing this big high-profile fundraiser for them,” Maddow said.
“But now that we know more about this group – or this guy, which appears to be the whole group – it now seems clear that Donald Trump and his campaign are either in on some kind of scheme with this group that is not a nonprofit or Donald Trump and his campaign just got duped and taken for a ride by a guy who you could suss out pretty easily with literally a page of Googling in 30 spare seconds,” said Maddow.
To illustrate her point, Rachel pointed out that a quick internet search for the financials of “Veterans for a Strong America” produces their publicly visible FEC report, which shows that the “group” had literally no expenditures during the first half of 2015. As of June 2015, Maddow found, it had $30 cash on hand and a single debt of $318 to another foundation chaired by Arends.
Rachel Maddow went on that the whole speech seemed forced and felt oddly contrived.
“It is weird enough to see Donald Trump campaigning for president standing on a decommissioned battleship when his only connection to the military is that he went to a military themed prep school in the 1960s,” Maddow pointed out.
“Donald Trump was not in the military, but he did use a pretty military backdrop tonight to raise money for a non-existent veterans’ group, which endorsed him formally as part of his introduction — and he said they have hundreds of thousands of members. And they don’t. And so the whole thing is fake.”
Heavy strengthens the claim made by Maddow by revealing Arends has been a vocal Donald supporter since at least the start of this year, so it follows that Arends and his allegedly large organization would have been on the Trump campaign’s radar for a while. And if this is the case, as Maddow pointed out, how could such an obvious sham go undetected? Could there be collusion at work?
What do you think about the comments Rachel Maddow made on Tuesday? Could Rachel be onto something by suggesting Trump has some sort of scheme going on with Arends or is this much ado about nothing? If you have time, watch Rachel Maddow’s 50-minute show on the subject below. Either way, leave your thoughts in the comments section.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxeLwYZ_u5Q
[Image via Media Salon]
