Instead of attending the Fox News GOP debate last night, which would have required facing moderator Megyn Kelly, Donald Trump decided to throw his own event — a fundraiser for veterans. Among the high-profile donors, Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter and his wife Laura threw in a hefty chunk of change: $1 million.
To be specific, the Perlmutters donated to Trump’s charity for veterans, not towards his campaign. The Perlmutters have previously donated $2 million to Marco Rubio’s campaign — as in, Rubio’s actual campaign fund, not a separate charity.
But where does the money for Trump’s charity efforts end up, exactly? The Federalist reports that Trump’s new veterans’ charity might not be quite what it seems, since “100% of the money raised on the site goes directly to Donald Trump’s personal non-profit foundation,” which “does not have a history of donating much money to veterans or to veterans’ causes.” That doesn’t mean that Trump might not be earmarking this recently-donated money for that specific purpose, but in 2015, Trump’s organization had only donated $57,000 to organizations that benefit veterans or their families. By Trump standards, $57K is chump change.
Regardless, hearing that Ike Perlmutter is a conservative shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to Marvel fans who read a lot of industry news.When Joss Whedon complained about trying to get progressive ideas past “the money guys,” this could very well be what he meant. Let’s recall that Perlmutter is the guy who expressed his doubts about the financial viability of female-led superhero movies; rumor has it that he was also the sole arguer against Black Widow toys, among other things. Allegedly, tensions had been high between Perlmutter and Marvel’s Kevin Feige due to those disagreements, leading to restructuring last year; Feige now reports to Disney’s Alan Horn instead, and by all accounts, Perlmutter has been less hands-on, which explains the diversity-driven decisions Marvel has made this year. Given what we know about Perlmutter’s politics, that all makes a lot of sense.
(via The Hollywood Reporter, image via Giphy)
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