Trump Donates $100,000 From Salary to Alcoholism Research

President Trump has donated his 2018 third-quarter salary of $100,000 to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, The White House said late last week. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes.

His hotels and golf clubs all sell alcohol, and the Trump Organization owns a winery in Charlottesville, Virginia. And while Trump doesn’t drink, that didn’t stop him from once hawking his own vodka brand. Donald Trump once said that not drinking was “one of my only good traits.” Just before he left office, former President Joe Biden, a fellow teetotaler, and his administration left Trump an opportunity to leave a lasting imprint on the billion-dollar beverage industry. Speaking to the Washington Post back in 2019, he explained that his brother Fred’s death at the age of 42 from a heart attack caused by alcohol abuse had convinced him not to drink. The president has said the experience affected his views on alcohol consumption.

“I had a brother, Fred. Great guy, best-looking guy, best personality, much better than mine,” Trump said during a 2018 news conference. “But he had a problem. He had a problem with alcohol, and he would tell me, ‘Don’t drink. Don’t drink.’ He was substantially older, and I listened to him and I respected (him).” Trump has said that his brother Fred’s struggle with addiction led him to avoid drinking and smoking entirely.

The impact of Fred Jr.’s decline and sober house early death left a lasting impression on Trump. He saw firsthand the destructive power of alcohol, not just on his brother’s life but on the physical toll it took as well. President Donald Trump has donated $100,000 of his salary to the federal agency that manages research on alcohol and alcohol-related issues.

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The industry routinely spends millions of dollars lobbying Congress. “I watched him. I was surprised at how vocal he was about the fact that he likes beer,” Trump said at the time. “This https://yourhealthmagazine.net/article/addiction/sober-houses-rules-that-you-should-follow/ is not a man that said that he was perfect with respect to alcohol.”

Trump donates $100G from his salary to alcoholism research

donald trump donates alcoholism

The departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Transportation and Veterans Affairs, among others, have accepted Trump’s donations. The departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Transportation and Veterans Affairs, among others, have accepted Trump’s donations. His older brother, Fred Jr., died in 1981 after struggling with alcoholism, and the president has said he learned from his brother’s experience. Trump pledged as a candidate in 2016 to not accept the $400,000 annual presidential salary he would be due if elected. His older brother, Fred Jr., died in 1981 after struggling with alcoholism, and the president has said he learned from his brother’s experience. Donors raised $1.7 billion in 2024 to back Harris’ campaign, between her main fundraising committee Harris Victory Fund and Future Forward.

donald trump donates alcoholism

Trump pledged as a candidate in 2016 to not accept the $400,000 annual presidential salary he would be due if elected

  • Harris, meanwhile, drew support from leaders including LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, who gave approximately $12 million to Future Forward and Harris’ campaign, and Netflix chairman Reed Hastings, whose $7 million donation to Harris led some Republicans to cancel their Netflix subscriptions.
  • At the time, Trump was preparing to attend a major GOP fundraiser hosted by a top Republican lobbyist for the beverage giant.
  • The NIAA “conducts research on the impact of alcohol use on human health and well-being” and serves as “the largest funder of alcohol research in the world,” according to the organization’s website.
  • Trump was “extremely put off” by Kavanaugh’s comments about drinking, Mark Meadows, a former White House chief of staff, said in his book “The Chief’s Chief.”
  • Trump’s transition team has not yet responded to a request for comment on RAI’s support and how Trump plans to handle the tobacco industry when he’s in office.

The research agency was just the latest recipient of Trump’s presidential salary. Supreme Court, litigation against Donald Trump and clashes over abortion rights. Durkee previously covered U.S. politics at Vanity Fair and Mic, and as a theatre journalist she served as a New York Outer Critics Circle voter.

  • His hotels and golf clubs all sell alcohol, and the Trump Organization owns a winery in Charlottesville, Virginia.
  • Donors raised $1.7 billion in 2024 to back Harris’ campaign, between her main fundraising committee Harris Victory Fund and Future Forward.
  • Billionaire Elon Musk, the CEO of companies including Tesla and SpaceX, spent more than $200 million helping Trump, largely through Musk’s America PAC.
  • Trump has said his brother’s alcoholism and death deterred the president from drinking or smoking.

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While Harris outraised Trump overall and secured donations from dozens of billionaires, the vice president got little support from corporate interests, FEC filings show. The biggest super PAC backing Harris, Future Forward, did not receive any corporate donations above $1 million, and though it did receive $1 million from cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase on August 14, that appears to be a transfer of cryptocurrency donated to the PAC by Ripple CEO Christian Larsen. Geosor Corporation, a company owned by billionaire and Democratic megadonor George Soros, also put $10 million into Soros’ Democracy PAC, which sent money to super PACs that supported Harris’ campaign. Super PACs backing Harris also received some smaller amounts from companies, such as a PAC affiliated with the game Cards Against Humanity giving $159,000 to Women Vote PAC, the political committee arm of Emily’s List that helps elect female candidates. In 2016, when he was still a candidate, Trump pledged not to accept the $400,000 annual presidential salary, saying he would donate it to various federal departments and agencies.

Forbes reporters follow company ethical guidelines that ensure the highest quality. Follow her for continued coverage of Trump’s ongoing legal issues, the 2024 election and major cases at the Supreme Court. Trump previously defended Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest beer company, when some of his closest allies and supporters urged a boycott of the company in response to its brief partnership with the transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. There is a growing push among public-health groups for lawmakers to take a tougher approach to regulating alcohol.

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Those totals do not include other, smaller, PACs that backed each candidate. There beside Casablancas and in pursuit of European models, Trump drank, according to Laraby (a bartender who has long used only one name professionally, sometimes spelling it Larabee) and Michael Ault, a titan in clubland who is credited with inventing bottle service. One of the models Trump met in this era was Melania Knauss, a Slovenian invited to New York by the founder of the ID Models agency, Paolo Zampolli. Fred Jr.’s battle with alcoholism eventually cost him his career as a pilot, forcing him back into the family business. Tragically, he died from a heart attack at the young age of 42 on September 26, 1981.

donald trump donates alcoholism

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President to serve two non-consecutive terms, Trump’s choice to abstain from alcohol remains unchanged. In an intimate reveal to The Washington Post back in 2019, Trump shared the sorrowful story of his elder brother, Fred Trump Jr., and how his struggle with alcohol influenced Trump’s own choices. Instead of alcohol, Donald Trump’s drink of choice is a Diet Coke. “Let’s say I started drinking, it’s very possible I wouldn’t be talking to you right now.” “He was so handsome, and I saw what alcohol did to him even physically… and that had an impact on me, too,” Trump had said, telling his interviewer he might not be around if he drank alcohol.

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While visiting the White House in 1995, then-Russian president Boris Yeltsin reportedly got so drunk that secret service agents found him standing on Pennsylvania Avenue in nothing but his underwear trying to flag down a taxi and demanding a pizza. Before his passing, Fred would frequently tell Trump to never drink or smoke — a warning the 45th president says he’s followed. Trump’s brother, Fred Jr., died nearly four decades ago at the age of 43 after battling alcohol addiction.