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#TrumpSoPoor Twitter Trend: Donald Trump Ridiculed Online Over Disastrous Campaign Cash Crisis

Published on: June 21, 2016 at 7:19 AM ET
By Jonathan Vankin

The hashtag #TrumpSoPoor was listed Monday by the social media outlet Twitter as one of the top trends on the popular platform, as Twitter users mercilessly roasted Republican presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump over a campaign finance report that showed the New York real estate mogul’s bid for the White House astonishingly low on cash.

Not only does the former Apprentice reality TV host trail his Democratic opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, by nearly eight points in an average of all national head-to-head polls, according to the election-tracking site Pollster.com , but according to the required financial reports made public yesterday by both campaigns, “The Donald,” as he has long been known in the media, trails Clinton in the bank account department — by more than 3,200 percent.

What is the basis of the #TrumpSoPoor hashtag ? The candidate’s campaign reported a total of $1.3 million in cash available to spend on campaign expenses, advertising, and other necessary expenditures required to run for president, in the official report released on Monday.

Clinton, despite a long and contentious primary campaign in which her Democratic opponent, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders still has not yet conceded the race, reported more than $42 million in the bank — a stunning advantage that has Republicans deeply worried.

Some of the online delight in the #TrumpSoPoor hashtag may also stem from the declaration by the businessman when he announced his candidacy that is “really rich.”

And in another bizarre twist, a large chunk of the money spent by his campaign appears, according to the campaign finance report, to be funneled to Trump himself , through his many business and real estate ventures.

According to the report, the campaign even spent $423,371 on rent and catering expenses at Mar-A-Lago, a private club owned by the self-proclaimed billionaire in Palm Beach, Florida, where he maintains his own home.

“It’s very common for candidates to loan money to their campaign,” one campaign finance expert told the online magazine Daily Beast . “It’s even not unusual for a candidate to have the campaign purchase goods or services, usually rent, from an entity that’s owned by the campaign. But the scale here is completely different.”

Watch a report on the strange and shocking financial crisis in the Republican candidate’s campaign, courtesy of MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, in the video below.

The #TrumpSoPoor Twitter trend spawned dozens, even hundreds of jokes belittling the Republican candidate for what appears to be the gross mismanagement of his campaign finances.

What follows are just a few examples of the #TrumpSoPoor trend on Twitter that surfaced on Monday.

The campaign finance report that inspired the #TrumpSoPoor trend appeared on the eve of a planned speech by Hillary Clinton in which she plans to skewer her Republican adversary for what she will reportedly portray as his dangerously irresponsible economic platform and financial practices.

The stunning campaign finance report appears to add further ammunition to Clinton’s argument, which she will deliver in a speech Tuesday in Columbus, Ohio.

“The core proposition of her speech in Ohio is if you put Donald Trump behind the steering wheel of the American economy he would be very likely to drive us off a cliff, and working families would bear the brunt,” Jake Sullivan, a top policy advisor to Clinton, told the online magazine Politico on Monday.

“This is not just a supposition or assertion. This is the natural conclusion you reach when you look at the combination of his policy proposals, his reckless and erratic temperament, and his record in the private sector of consistently doing harm,” Sullivan said.

MORE DONALD TRUMP COVERAGE FROM THE INQUISITR:

Whether Clinton will tweak her speech, scheduled for 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time at Fort Hayes Metropolitan Education Center in Columbus, to make reference to the #TrumpSoPoor Twitter trend, however, will not be known until she takes the podium.

[Featured Photo By Gerardo Mora / Getty Images]

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