How Much Money Is Donald Trump Making As President

Claim: Donald Trump works for no money

As President Donald Trump receives criticism for how he has handled the coronavirus pandemic, his backers accept taken to social media to show their support.

1 topic that comes upwardly is that Trump works for no money and donates the entirety of his presidential salary.

A Facebook mail service from May that has clustered over 100,000 shares reads: "I desire to thank Donald Trump for working like a domestic dog for no money to relieve a country that doesn't appreciate his sacrifice! Thank you Mr. President!"

Posts of that nature contain a degree of truth, but are misleading.

Trump, every bit promised during his campaign, does write checks to various agencies equivalent to a quarter of his annual salary every quarter. But this does non mean he earns no money.

This notion is misleading because Trump continues to turn a profit off of real estate he owns or manages, despite lawsuits arguing that this violates the Constitution's emoluments clauses.

More:Fact Check: No, schools will non crave a COVID-xix vaccine, with RFID fleck, for students

Trump has donated his presidential salary

Trump is not the first president to donate his salary. Sometime Presidents John F. Kennedy and Herbert Hoover, both wealthy earlier they took office, donated all their earnings. Forbes reports Trump's net worth as of July 9 at $ii.1 billion, making him the start president to be a billionaire.

When Trump announced his decision to forgo a salary, critics expressed doubt because presidents are required to be compensated for their work. To get effectually this, Trump takes $1 each year from his paychecks.

Co-ordinate to news coverage and White House news releases, Trump has written checks equal to a quarter of his $400,000 annual salary every quarter to various government agencies:

2017

Q1 National Parks Service
Q2 Department of Pedagogy
Q3 Health and Human Services
Q4 Department of Transportation

2018

Q1 Department of Veterans Affairs
Q2 Small-scale Business Assistants
Q3 National Plant on Alcohol Corruption and Alcoholism
Q4 Department of Homeland Security

2019

Q1 Department of Agronomics
Q2 U.Southward. Surgeon General's Role
Q3 Role of the Assistant Secretary of Health
Q4 Section of Health and Homo Services

Trump and his constituents have non yet appear where he will donate his bacon for the showtime and 2d quarters of 2020.

The president came under scrutiny for donating $100,000 to the Section of Health and Human Services after proposing a 10% budget cut totaling billions of dollars. He'southward likewise proposed cuts totaling amounts larger than his donations for the National Parks Service and the Department of Education.

More:Fact check: U.s.a. government did non engineer COVID-19

Federal law bars donations to most federal agencies

Federal regulations bar many government agencies from accepting donations unless canonical by Congress. If Congress does not approve them, the money goes to the Treasury Department's full general fund.

"While gifts to the United States do non require statutory authority, gifts to an individual federal agency stand on a unlike footing," the police force says. "The rule is that a government agency may not accept for its own use (i.eastward., for retentiveness by the agency or credit to its own appropriations) gifts of coin or other property in the absenteeism of specific statutory authorization ... As the Comptroller Full general said in that determination, "(w)hen the Congress has considered desirable the receipt of donations . . . it has generally made specific provision therefor . . . . Thus, acceptance of a gift of coin or other property past an agency defective statutory dominance to practise so is an improper augmentation. If an agency does non have statutory authority to take donations of money, it must plough the money in to the Treasury as miscellaneous receipts."

Despite these regulations White House spokesman Judd Deere confirmed to USA TODAY that all of the federal agencies to which Trump has donated have received the money.

More:Trump blasts Supreme Court decision on fiscal records, saying information technology showed a lack of 'deference'

Trump nonetheless earns money

Trump all the same profits off property he owns, including the Trump International Hotel in Washington and Trump Tower in New York. He likewise earns money from the rights to a U.K. television spinoff of "The Amateur" and various properties in the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Scotland and the Philippines. And so imprecise claims that Trump works for "no coin" are not totally accurate.

Autonomous lawmakers are highly-seasoned a case against the president because they believe that this profiting, combined with the fact that "his hotels take reportedly been frequented by foreign diplomats from around the world since his term began," as The Loma reported, violates the foreign and domestic emoluments clauses of the Constitution.

The strange emoluments clause states that no authorities official can receive gifts from king, prince or foreign state. The domestic emoluments similarly says the president cannot receive "any other Emolument (beyond a fixed salary) from the U.s.a., or any of them."

For case, the New York Times reported the government of Kuwait spent tens of thousands of dollars on a gala at the Trump International Hotel in Washington from which Trump profited. The "Kingdom of Saudi arabia owns a floor and pays thousands of dollars a yr in common charges for building civilities" at the Trump World Tower in New York, from which Trump also profits.

More:4 things to know about the tell-all-volume by President Trump's niece

Our ruling: Partly false

While it's true that President Donald Trump has donated his salary to different federal agencies throughout his term, he still profits off of real estate and other business dealings. It would be false to say he works for "no money." For this reason, we rate the claim as PARTLY Imitation.

Our fact-check sources:

Facebook postal service, May 24, 2020
PolitiFact, "Trump donates 2019 salary to USDA, surgeon general," Aug. 19, 2019
Politico, "Trump botches a avowal about giving away his presidential salary," October. 21, 2019
Forbes, Existent fourth dimension net worth of Donald Trump
Business firm Hearing, 106 Congress "Bacon of the President of the U.s."
Cornell Constabulary Schoolhouse, "3 U.S. Lawmaking § 102.Compensation of the President"
White Business firm Press Briefing, April iii, 2017
White House Press Briefing, Nov. thirty, 2017
White House Press Conference, Feb. xiii, 2018
White House Printing Briefing, May 17, 2018
Usa TODAY, "President Trump donates $100,000 of his salary to Surgeon General'south role," Aug. xvi, 2019
Tweet from President Donald Trump, March xviii, 2019
AgriPulse, "Trump to donate Q1 salary to USDA," May 16, 2019
PBS NewsHour, "Trump donates his 3rd-quarter salary to fight the opioid epidemic," Nov. 26, 2019
Tweet from Kayleigh McEnay, March 3, 2020
Vox, "Trump donated $100,000 of his bacon to fight coronavirus. He'south made much more than that off the presidency," March 4, 2020
The Washington Mail service, "Trump seeks to slash $8.5 billion from Educational activity Section upkeep," March 11, 2019
The Part of the General Counsel, "Principles of Federal Appropriations Law"
Congressional Inquiry Service, "The Emoluments Clauses of the U.Southward. Constitution," May 26, 2020
The New York Times, "Trump Even so Makes Money From His Properties. Is This Constitutional?" July 10, 2019
The Hill, "Democrats inquire Supreme Court to hear emoluments case against Trump," July 6, 2020
E-mail from Judd Deere, White House spokesperson, July 8, 2019