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Rarely does a month go by without the emergence of a new Internet meme comparing the presidencies of Donald Trump and Barack Obama, typically favoring the former over the latter. In July 2018, we were alerted to a meme declaring that while President Trump donates all of his salary and First Lady Melania Trump makes do with a small White House staff of four people, President Obama donated none of his salary and First Lady Michelle Obama surrounded herself with a large staff of 23 attendants. In life there's givers and takers, the post concluded. It was straightforward, to the point, and grossly misleading all at the same time: As for President Trump's donating all of his presidential salary (as he promised to do during his campaign), to date that is an accurate statement. We reported previously that Trump has so far written a personal check each quarter in an amount equivalent to one-fourth of his annual salary to the following federal agencies: the National Park Service, the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and the Department of Homeland Security. Former president Barack Obama, on the other hand, did not convert his entire presidential salary into donations (nor did he promise to), but it's false to say he donated none of it. According to Forbes, President Obama donated some $1.1 million (an amount representing 34% of the $3.2 million aggregate salary he received over eight years in office) to charitable causes during his term in office. This is a partial accounting of those donations: President Obama also more than doubled that charitable total by also donating the entire $1.4 million he received as the winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to ten different organizations: Taken together, all those donations represented more than 78% of the total salary President Obama was paid during his time in the White House. Although President Obama's donations may have amounted to a lesser percentage of his presidential salary than the 100% President Trump is projected to donate over the course of his presidency, the comparison is a lopsided one unless one takes into account that Trump entered office with a reported net worth in the multi-billions, while the Obamas' combined wealth was a bare fraction of that. Trump didn't need his presidential salary, and he said as much — before Trump took office, the only presidents who had donated their entire salaries were John F. Kennedy and Herbert Hoover, both of whom were also independently wealthy. The matter of the first ladies' staff sizes is similarly prone to misrepresentation. A rumor that circulated while the Obamas were still in the White House alleged that Michelle Obama had an unprecedented number of staffers working for her, but in fact her staff, which totaled between 22 and 24 employees, was comparable in size to that of Laura Bush during the final year of the George W. Bush administration. (And their staffs paled beside those of Lady Bird Johnson and Betty Ford, each of whom had around 30 employees, and Jackie Kennedy, who reportedly had about 40.) Things get more complicated when it comes to Melania Trump. For one thing, she didn't move into the White House until 11 June 2017, five months into her husband's presidency. For another, she was far less active during her inaugural year as first lady than her immediate predecessors. Does Melania Trump have a smaller staff than Michelle Obama? Yes, but the disparity is smaller than alleged. The claim that she only has four staff members is based on the 2017 annual report to Congress on White House office personnel. That report does list exactly four staff members whose titles link them directly to the first lady, but it is neither a full nor a current count, for the following reasons: First, the report was published on 1 July 2017, only slightly more than two weeks after Melania Trump moved into the East Wing. Her staff was skeletal then, at best. Second, if we apply the same criteria used to arrive at a count of Michelle Obama's staff, at least two employees who aren't directly linked to the first lady by title must also be included: special assistant to the president/White House social secretary, and deputy social secretary. Those positions alone bring the total size of Melania Trump's staff in her first two weeks in the White House to six. Lastly, for whatever reasons, the annual reports to Congress don't list the first lady's entire staff. For example, in January 2018 Melania hired three new employees, but only one of those is accounted for in the 1 July 2018 report. Statements made to the press by the first lady's communications director, Stephanie Grisham (who did not respond to our request for an updated list), indicated Melania Trump's staff numbered nine employees as of October 2017. Her three new hires in January 2018 would have brought that total to 12 staffers — a total still lower than Michelle Obama's, but triple the mere four claimed of her. The meme under discussion, therefore, deploys inaccurate numbers and misleading comparisons to portray the Trumps as givers and the Obamas as takers.
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