Donald Trump Even Financially Stiffs Children

You're never too young to get stiffed financially by Trump

Last night Elon Musk interviewed Donald Trump on his Twitter/X platform. I opted not to watch it because it's definitely not serious journalism. Elon Musk is not a journalist and he is openly supporting Trump. It was obvious that he did this event in an effort to help Trump win in November.

Instead I'm going to focus on one unsavory aspect about Trump that Musk would never mention in his video special.

Donald Trump has long had a reputation for not paying people for work they've done for him. When he went into his family’s real estate business, he didn't pay the numerous contractors who did the work on various Trump properties.

When he got into politics he continued with his habit of not paying his bills, which included venues where he held his rallies.

He had his lawyers quit when he refused to pay them $3 million in legal fees despite recently raising $170 million.

Two of the co-founders of Truth Social, Andy Litinsky and Wes Moss, filed a lawsuit against Trump on the basis that he never paid them.

If you really take a look at how bad Trump is at not paying people, you’ll find some awful examples. Among people whom he hadn't paid were a troupe of child performers.

Some of you may remember these kids. They were a trio of young girls known as the USA Freedom Kids and they were the opening act for a Trump rally in Pensacola, Florida back in 2016. (That was the year that he ran against Hillary Clinton and actually won with a little help from Russia.) They gave it their all as they performed onstage wearing star-spangled outfits.

The USA Freedom Kids gained international fame when that video went viral. But there was one big problem: They were supposed to be paid for their appearance and they weren't. It had led to The Late Show With Stephen Colbert talking about the USA Freedom Kids not being paid while doing a parody of the original USA Freedom Kids’ performance.

Soon after that Pensacola rally The USA Freedom Kids’ manager, Jeff Popick, sued Trump for non-payment. The lawsuit that Popick and his lawyer Marc Shapiro filed was seeking somewhere between $5,000-15,000. As CNN reported at the time:

Popick claimed the Trump campaign failed to allow the group to set up a table to sell CDs at a rally and then, after making a trek from Florida to Des Moines, Iowa, canceled the Freedom Kids' scheduled performance. He said the Trump campaign never made the situation right and that it was worth legal action.

A month after Donald Trump won the 2016 election the lawsuit was dropped by the group. Popick said “After engaging in the public spat with Trump campaign, USA Freedom Kids went on a hiatus…The political stuff really took a toll on (the girls).”

There is no indication as to whether the group was ever paid anything for their performance. What is really telling about this incident is that in 2020 the group supported Joe Biden by re-recording the song that they performed at Trump's Pensacola rally. I can't say that I blame them for switching to singing on behalf of Biden.

There haven’t been anything new about the USA Freedom Kids since 2020. I think the girls who were in that video are probably adults by now. It would be pretty hilarious if they were to reform to record a new version of that song they performed in Pensacola all those years ago especially for Kamala Harris. It would be the perfect thing since Donald Trump has been melting down on a regular basis since Joe Biden withdrew from the race and Harris took his place. It would serve Trump right for not paying those girls what he owed them all those years ago.

The big lesson here is to never do business of any kind with Donald Trump unless you receive full payment up front.

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