Update, 6:25 p.m.: In a tweet Trump campaign director of communications Tim Murtaugh responded “people win the contests each time,” and added, “And no we didn’t respond to Judd Legum, ThinkProgress & Hillary alum, for obvious reasons.”
The original article continues below.
On October 22, an email from Donald J. Trump’s campaign to its subscribers read, “I just saw the most recent list of Patriots who have contributed to win a trip to meet me in Chicago on October 28th, and I noticed you STILL haven’t entered,” then followed up the next day with an email that said, “We’d hate for you to miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have lunch with President Trump himself at his FAVORITE hotel in Chicago.” This, like 14 other promotions by the campaign since 2018, promised one lucky winner travel, accommodations, and a meal if they signed up for the contest (some posts screenshot in the newsletter suggested that campaign donations increase odds of winning).
And yet, in nearly two years of these promotions, there’s yet to be evidence that any of these promised meals actually happened. This according to the newsletter Popular Information and sleuth Judd Legum, the founder of ThinkProgress and former research director in 2008 for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. He asked the Washington Post’s pool reporter, who was traveling with the president at the time, whether the president had made a stop to lunch with the winning contestant in Chicago. She asked the campaign and the White House, but did not receive an answer. Popular Information asked a campaign spokesperson as well and did not receive an answer.
Which means, you know, who knows! It’s possible the president went to these meals quietly. Maybe Trump grabbed a nice dinner at some little hole in the wall before he boarded his whirlybird and took to the sky. Trump must be over having his photo taken by now. You can almost hear him yell, “Can’t I get lunch with some random person in peace!” Yes, he seems like the type to really know when it’s time to stop mugging for the camera and focus on quality time. But campaigns demand these kinds of wholesome photo ops; even though Trump surely didn’t want a picture, a picture would have to be shared.
And regardless, wouldn’t a campaign staff spokesperson come forward to say on the record, or at least on background, that these contests have resulted in a bona fide grub-getting between any campaign supporter and the president. It’s not bad for the president to carry out this kind of promise in public. In fact it would be good! But alas, there’s only silence where a quick and clear answer would suffice, so one can’t be sure.
There was also some wonkiness with the sweepstakes deadline times shared, which Legum documents at length. So at present it does appear that the Trump campaign is swindling its own supporters by promising them that they’re entering a contest when they have done no such thing.
Trump certainly wants to go through with the lunch or dinner, though. He wants to sit down with some regular American, in some American town, over some corned beef hash. He wants to shake hands with the little guy, the one who contributed $20, and would have given more if he could swing it, but, you know, there are bills to pay and food to put on the table. Trump wishes he could clap this randomly selected supporter on the back and say something charming like, “I fired ISIS like a dog so be an AMERICAN HERO and investigate HUNTER BIDEN or else this WITCH HUNT will not quid pro quo with Ukraine and I have infinite genius parts.” He would love to hear about the everyday struggles of a single constituent, the things that make him tick or what keeps her up at night. He’d love to rap a little, trade pet theories on how to make America great again. It’s just that, who has the time?
I don’t mean just the president—who is extremely busy with this and that, of course—but anyone! Those who entered the contest were probably excited when they did it. They probably really looked forward to grabbing a meal for a while. But when it came time to actually go, the dread kicked in. They texted “not feeling so hot” and “can we rain check?” And Trump was honestly grateful. He texted back, “NO problem at all. Hope you feel better!!“ and sighed a big sigh of relief. He loves those folks, but sometimes the prospect of keeping the conversational ball in the air for one? Two? Three? hours can jack up the anxiety. I mean, you finish talking about how essential it is to keep the poor and persecuted as far away from us as possible after 10 minutes and then what? The weather? And so, they skipped it, and instead did what the rest of us do: let their keyboards soak in butternut squash soup while polishing off a dry salad at their desks.
In fact maybe that was the plan all along. These other politicians—your Elizabeth Warrens, your Jeb Bushes—typically went for the low-commitment drink when they held their own meet and greet contest, as Legum pointed out. A drink is low-key. It can be breezy. Excuses to skip are generally weak since you can always only have just one and bounce. But by banking on an entire breakfast, lunch, or dinner, you basically bank on it never happening. Not that this guy would choose not to deliver on a promise. No, not this one.
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