Donald Trump’s big stunt takes a dump
“It’s all lies, smoke, and mirrors,” Jeff Timmer (senior advisor at Lincoln Project) wrote on X. He’s not the only one who sees Trump’s church scam for what it was. David Frum, former George W. Bush speechwriter, had this to say about Trump’s “stunt” as he called it: “He created a completely fake media event, he rented a church, he bussed in people who were wearing not church clothes but rally clothes, they were obviously not locals. You don’t have to do that if you have support.” Frum had some other things to say, most of which centered around Donald Trump’s lies, saying: “When you have to tell so many lies, when you have to bus in people, it tells me you probably don’t have a lot of indigenous support in that town.” Of course, he doesn’t. Trump was merely putting on a show for his crazy supporters. Besides, Trump really has nothing to offer but lies, and people need to be very clear about that.
Now that he’s done with his lies in Detroit, Trump has moved on removing taxes from tips-if, again, you dare to believe him. HuffPost tells us why we shouldn’t. His latest schtick, which started in Nevada, is ensuring that service workers aren’t taxed for tips, but when he was in the White House, he made sure they never got benefit of most of their tips. Trump enacted a policy that allowed employers to have control over workers’ tips. Restaurants were allowed to take the tips earned by waitstaff and “share” them with people who didn’t earn tips, such as cooks and dishwashers. If these employers felt they weren’t paying their other staff enough, they should have raised their salaries instead of taking money from other employees. This sounds like one of the worst ideas ever but consider the source. According to HuffPost, the Trump administration also buried an analysis that predicted tipped workers would lose billions in wages under his new plan. Democrats tried to lessen the impact by including a provision that stopped employers from pocketing tips. If Trump had truly cared about these people, why didn’t he simply raise the minimum wage? Because he didn’t care, unlike President Biden who reversed most of this rule.
Nothing has changed with Donald Trump, and there is no way he is going to create tax free tips. The last thing Trump is worried about is an ordinary citizen, and he’s definitely not concerned about Black people. He didn’t even recognize the pastor who allowed him to come to his church. He just wants their votes, which the next guest to the church said. Dr. Wendell Anthony, who is also a pastor and president of the Detroit NAACP said this: “Trump didn’t articulate any policy. He articulated the fact that he wanted to come and get some Black votes. We don’t need people to stand up on frivolity. We need you to come in and talk about policy. Don’t fall for the snake because every time you do, you get bit.” I couldn’t have said it any better myself.
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years