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Trump has given away his $400,000 salary since 2017. Nobody ever says thank you.

Trump: ‘You Got Me for Nothing, Too’ — He Gives Away His Salary and Nobody Says Thanks

by
M.A. Rothman

By M.A. RothmanSeptember 29, 2026 · 4 min read
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President Trump paused in the middle of thanking his team on Tuesday to point out something most Americans have long forgotten: he does not keep his presidential paycheck. He has given it away since his first year in office, and, as he told the audience with a mix of humor and genuine irritation, nobody ever thanks him for it.

The aside came at the Sept. 29 launch of America.gov, a new federal website Trump described as “one front door for every single question” Americans have about their government.

“Do I get thanks for it? None.”

Trump had been praising the officials who gave up lucrative private careers to serve, people he said are “working 20 hour days in government on behalf of our country.” Then he turned the joke on himself.

“Well, you got me for nothing, too. I don’t take my salary,” he said. After musing about whether George Washington took his pay, he went on: “They take their salary. I decided not to, including in my first term. Do I get thanks for it? None. Nobody ever says, thank you very much, sir. Oh, boy, oh, boy.”

It was played for laughs, and it got them. But underneath the joke is a fact that has been true in every year he has held the office and almost never makes the evening news.

The record behind the line

The president’s salary is $400,000 a year. Trump pledged during the 2016 campaign that he would not take it, and he has kept that promise. In his first term, he donated his pay in quarterly installments to federal agencies. According to PolitiFact, which rated the pledge a “Promise Kept” in December 2018, recipients included the National Park Service, the Department of Education, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Small Business Administration, which received a $100,000 check for the second quarter of 2018.

His first paycheck of the second term went to the White House Historical Association. Trump announced it on Truth Social in August 2025: “My first ‘Paycheck’ went to the White House Historical Association,” he wrote, as part of his push for major renovations at the White House, including the new ballroom. In a May 2026 interview on “Full Measure,” Trump said that “much of it goes to the White House preservation,” according to the Washington Examiner.

Put plainly: at $400,000 a year, a full first term and the first 20 months of a second add up to more than $2 million in presidential pay that, by the public record and his own account, went back into the government or into the upkeep of the White House, not into Trump’s pocket.

A footnote for accuracy

Trump has sometimes suggested that no other president has done this. That is not quite right, and it’s worth saying so. Herbert Hoover, who served from 1929 to 1933 at a salary of $75,000, told a Kansas newspaper editor in 1937 that he had “kept the money that came to me as salary in a separate account,” using part of it to supplement the salaries of men who worked under him and giving part to charities. John F. Kennedy, according to the Hoover Presidential Library, gave his $100,000 presidential salary to charity as well.

Both men, notably, were wealthy. So is Trump. That is the point critics always raise: they argue that the salary is pocket change next to his family’s business interests. That is a fair argument to have. It is also a different argument. Whatever one thinks of Trump’s fortune, the specific claim he made is true. He does not take the money.

Why it gets no credit

Washington runs on a simple incentive: the job pays, the job leads to the next job, and the next job pays more. Members of Congress collect their salaries without apology. Former officials cash in on book deals, speaking fees and board seats. None of that is illegal, and much of it is routine. But it makes the man who works the top job for free an odd fit in a city where nobody ever leaves money on the table.

It also explains why the donation is so rarely mentioned. A president who gives his salary to the Park Service and veterans’ programs doesn’t fit the story many in the press prefer to tell about him. So it rarely gets mentioned, which is exactly what Trump was complaining about.

He is right that nobody says thank you. Maybe somebody should.

He has worked the hardest job in America for free every year he has held it, and the people who call him a grifter have never once said thanks.

Sources

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