The $5 million offer that Obama will refuse

As I suspected, Trump was full of hot air again. He doesn’t have any big revelation about Obama’s background. He just has an offer, of $5 million to a charity of Obama’s choice, if he makes public his college applications and transcripts and releases his passport history.

Obama is going to refuse because he’s hiding something. Why else would he refuse the offer of $5 million to some left-wing charity?

And I predict the MSM will ignore Trump rather than do any investigation at all into what Obama might be hiding.

Comments

[John]

Accepting the offer would make Obama look submissive and low status regardless of whether he has anything to hide.

[Arronski]

I'm not from the US so sorry if this is ignorant, but is it customary for presidents to release all of this stuff being requested of Obama?

"Why else would he refuse the offer of $5 million to some left-wing charity?"

Because he doesn't want to be guilted in to complying with Trump's stupid requests. Which is totally fair. I wouldn't just allow people to make me do whatever they want and claim I'm letting children starve (or whatever) if I don't.

[XVO]

Surely Trump could bribe/steal his way to the records for $5 million if he really thought they were important. He's just trying to promote himself.

[Mike linton]

$5 million will go a long way to help kids in need. Why not say yes and help the kids. All other pesidents has released records of this nature. I have read that obama,s party has spent millions to keep this info secret. Prove them all wrong & make $5 million . I think Obama has lied and a major cover up is being done by the democratic party. Yes I am a registered democrat, so dont go there!

[JP]

Ah, if only Trump were pulling a James O'Keefe sting -- wait for Obama to say the transcripts don't exist, and then say "oh, that's funny, I have them right here!"

[Psychohistorian]

It doesn't mean he's hiding something. As a politician, it'd be stupid if he jumped when Trump told him to. It's just a PR stunt for Trump; he's bitter that no one cares about him.

[Patrick]

hahaha truly pathetic.

He's a self-proclaimed "billionaire" yet he's only willing to pony up a measly $5 mil? Large charities raise and spend that in a month. If he were serious he would offer $50 million plus.

Why would Obama take the offer considering Trump would just claim the documents are forged and deny payment?

Why, Sigma, do you continually pay attention to this sleazebag?

[Data Scientist]

He's not gonna release anything. Obama is going to get someone like Gates to donate $10 million instead, and this whole thing will backfire on Trump.

[Bill]

Nothing will happen because Trump is a non-entity there is literally no advantage to taking his money. Obama can raise $5 mill for charity in a heartbeat. Unless this becomes a major meme like his birth certificate, the media (and Obama) will safely ignore it. Either way, it won't change the past four years of Obama's policies, which serve as a far better judge of his suitability for office.

[helene edwards]

"$5 million will go a long way to help kids in need."

Explain this, please. Is it going to get earmarked for poor whites in West Virginia? If not, seen any hungry urban black kids lately? I didn't think so. How about unclothed? Yeah, didn't think so. And they all have medicaid, right? So it's not needed for vaccinations or anything. I know! Ipads! Yeah, that's the ticket.

[The Real Vince]

"All other pesidents has released records of this nature."

Since when? Bush refused to release his transcripts. I think someone from the NEW YORKER unearthed them.

If "The Donald" is concerned about hungry children, no one is stopping him from donating the $5m to charity.

[Turambar]

"As I suspected, Trump was full of hot air again. He doesn’t have any big revelation about Obama’s background."

Then what was Trump's point in all this?

Maybe this is his drop back position after being talked out releasing what he did have by a Romney campaign that is pretty confident and doesnt want a distraction from their message.

Unless he has a follow up on deck there doesnt seem to be much of a point to his actions. Maybe he has something and starts leaking it one by one.

[GLS]

I went through the poll numbers on RCP today and if the toss-up states go the way the polls are trending, then Obama comes away with 277 electoral votes, winning by the skin of his teeth more or less. In my calculations, I gave Obama Iowa (6), Nevada (6), Ohio (18), Pennsylvania (20), Michigan (16), and Wisconsin (10). None of those are locks, but they are consistently trending Obama. Virgina (13), New Hampshire (4), and Colorado (9) look like true toss-ups while Florida seems almost certain to go Romney.

I'm guessing this election will be like 2000 Bush vs. Gore - one of the closest in history.

I do have a question. Considering his positive momentum, if Romney loses, is he viable again in 4 years? Parties have a tendency to throw away their losing nominees, but that obviously isn't an ironclad law. Romney seems like a guy that, even if he loses this time, people may not necessarily perceive him as a loser the way they do McCain.

[Loren Bergeson]

Is this any different than Romney refusing to release his tax returns for several years further back?

[JP]

What was Trump's point in all this? To divert media attention away from femcunt Gloria Allred.

[Kidd]

GLS, good point. Romney might have an outside shot in 2016 if and when conservatives nominate a field of bumbling idiots again. But in general, no one wants to be seen nominating a two time loser, even worse, a two time consecutive loser.

[The Real Vince]

"Is this any different than Romney refusing to release his tax returns for several years further back?"

Yes. There's a precedent of politicians releasing records that stretch back eight years, a policy ironically pioneered by Romney's father. The reason for eight years is that it's trivially easy for any fool to cover up their accounts for the past year or two.

There is no similar precedent for academic records. I'm not sure why it's relevant thirty years after the fact to see how someone did in Literature 201. Certainly if a Democrat was the valedictorian at an Ivy League college he would be demonized all the more for it. The right-wing blogosphere would thunder on and on about the "mistake" of conflating how someone did in the bubbleworld of academia versus the real world of international relations. Just because you did well in grad school and the GRE does not mean you possess leadership skills.

Incidentally, has Romney released his transcripts?

[Christy]

Showing your tax returns is way more invasive than showing your college transcripts. It's very common to have to show your transcripts to get a job or apply to graduate school. I wonder how many copies of Obama's records are floating around out there. It's sort of surprising they haven't turned up yet.

[Rain And]

CNN had a post about how single women are more likely to vote for pro-abortion candidates during the sluttier phase of their ovulation cycle, but it provoked so much outrage they took it down.

http://gawker.com/5954703/cnn-removes-do-hormones-drive-womens-votes-post

[jeanne]

Really, this all should have happened in 2008. Too late now, as he is the incumbent. Totally different criteria.

And historically, high grades were never part of the criteria anyway. When did that start?

[not too late]

"I'm not sure why it's relevant thirty years after the fact to see how someone did in Literature 201."

Most people running for president have done something noteworthy in the interim. Since Obama hasn't, people wonder what the hell happened and how it started.

[Turambar]

Althouse agrees with me that the Trump announcement doesnt mesh with the pre-announcement and that there was probably some last minute swerve.

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2012/10/wait-is-this-all-trump-was-talking-about.html

I think the strongest possibility is that Romney told him to bag it because he is quite confident the way things are looking. Well see if Stuart Stevens is the real deal or a repeat of the disastrous Steve Schmidt.

[Wally Deeds]

1. I just found this blog today and I am quite impressed with the caliber of both posts and comments. It's quite a relief from the comment boards of more mainstream sites.

2. One conspiracy theory (among many) about Obama's refusal is that he attended Columbia as a Foreign Exchange Student - not a Kenyan, but an Indonesian. The assertion is that his mother had him become an Indonesian citizen as a young child and by doing so, I guess he relinquishes (through his mother's actions, not his) 'natural born citizen' status. I believe there is not much care or concern from the Donald about Obama's GPA.

[The Real Vince]

"Showing your tax returns is way more invasive than showing your college transcripts."

And having a doctor describe your health to the public is probably more "invasive" than either. What matters is what's relevant. Financial records have historically been thought relevant because of the President's awesome power and his ability to manipulate for material gain. It's not just that the officeholder's unbiased but that he avoids even the appearance of bias, which is why there are disclosures...

I love how Romney refused to provide records stretching back several years because the Obama camp, he said, would "distort" them, yet he released his financials for 2011. Couldn't Obama distort those records? Please.

If you want to judge Obama, then the best indicator how he'll do in office is by what he's done in office (all that, uh, "socialism.") Romney's running as a successful businessman so we'll (try to) judge him by his record in business.

[WJ]

If Obama releases his transcripts the press will spin it however Obama wants them to spin it. Something like, "Obama calls Donald Trump's Bluff, Helps Poor White Kids in Ohio and Virginia."

Obama doesn't need a paltry $5 million for charity. He calls the shots every year on hundreds of billions of taxpayer money. He blows $5 million of our money in minutes. Our government spends $11 billion *per day.* One-fourth of that is welfare. Trump is offering him 1/500th of what he blows on welfare and pork in single day for the chance to embarrass himself and lose the election.

Trump could really up the ante and offer $1 billion, and the story would get more play, and Obama still wouldn't bite.

Why would Obama not release the transcripts?

1) Unimpressive grades, contra the Obama Genius Myth we've all been fed.
2) Shit leftist "studies" and "theory" courses that would appall many swing voters and every conservative.
3) Status as a foreign citizen. This wouldn't have required Obama to relinquish his US citizenship, but it still doesn't look good.
4) Maybe the transcripts are great. Perhaps Obama is just letting the story get built up only to release them prior to the election and make conservatives look foolish, as he did with his birth certificate. But this angle would require him to release them prior to the election. Otherwise he IS hiding something.

[WJ]

"I went through the poll numbers on RCP today and if the toss-up states go the way the polls are trending, then Obama comes away with 277 electoral votes."

Then the poll numbers you read were shit. All of the major polls are converging in the range of 50% Romney, 47% Obama. Romney will probably end up winning the popular vote by 4%. It's possible, but highly improbable, that a candidate loses that badly in the popular vote but wins the electoral college.

[Kyo]

@Wally - I've always assumed that to be the case. He doesn't have a birth problem, but he made it into college as a foreign student and now doesn't want anyone to see that he was pretending to be Indonesian so that he could get into the Ivy League.

[ProudUSA]

Listen carefully to Trump's offer - he is asking for the release of Obama's passport application and college applications, NOT transcripts. Obama's refusal to accept the offer that would help charities of his choice proves that he is a heartless impostor hiding from American people the ugly truth about himself.

[The Legendary Linda]

"Obama doesn't need a paltry $5 million for charity. He calls the shots every year on hundreds of billions of taxpayer money. He blows $5 million of our money in minutes. Our government spends $11 billion *per day.* One-fourth of that is welfare. Trump is offering him 1/500th of what he blows on welfare and pork in single day for the chance to embarrass himself and lose the election."

You overstate your case. You make it sound like being president is equivalent to being a trillionaire, ignoring all the checks and balances and the fact that congress has the power of the purse.

Actually I estimate the presidency is worth $15 billion. Meg Whitman said she was willing to spend $150 million of her own money for a 50% chance of being governor of one state, thus a 100% chance to be leader of all 50 states should be equal to $15 billion.

So Trump needs a net worth of more than $15 billion to be superior to the president. $30 billion if the president gets re-elected.