Reality test: Trump calls to prosecute Beyoncé based mostly on a nonexistent $11 million fee
President Donald Trump over the weekend referred to as for the prosecution of music famous person Beyoncé – based mostly on one thing that didn’t really occur.
Trump claimed in a social media put up that Beyoncé broke the regulation by supposedly getting paid $11 million for her endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris throughout an October 2024 occasion in Houston. However there may be merely no foundation for Trump’s declare that Beyoncé acquired an $11 million fee associated to the Harris marketing campaign, not to mention for the endorsement particularly.
Federal marketing campaign spending data present a $165,000 fee from the Harris marketing campaign to Beyoncé’s manufacturing firm, which the marketing campaign listed as a “marketing campaign occasion manufacturing” expense. A Harris marketing campaign spokesperson advised Deadline final yr that they didn’t pay movie star endorsers, however had been required by regulation to cowl the prices related to their appearances.
Whatever the deserves of this explicit $165,000 expenditure, it’s removed from an $11 million one. No person has ever produced any proof for the declare of an eight-figure endorsement fee to Beyoncé because the declare that it was “$10 million” started spreading final yr amongst Trump supporters on social media. Reality-check web sites FactCheck.org and PolitiFact seemed into the “$10 million” declare through the marketing campaign and didn’t discover any foundation for it.
The White Home didn’t instantly reply to a CNN request late Saturday for any proof of Trump’s $11 million determine. When Trump beforehand invoked the baseless determine, throughout an interview in February, he described his supply within the vaguest of phrases: “Someone simply confirmed me one thing. They gave her $11 million.”
A Harris spokesperson referred CNN on Saturday to a November social media put up by Beyoncé’s mom Tina Knowles, who referred to as the declare of a $10 million fee a “lie” and famous it was taken down by Instagram as “False Data.”
“When In Reality: Beyonce didn’t obtain a penny for talking at a Presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harrris’s (sic) Rally in Houston,” Knowles wrote.
A spokesperson for Beyoncé advised PolitiFact in November that the declare a few $10 million fee is “past ridiculous.”
Trump revived the false declare in a social media put up printed after midnight early Sunday morning in Scotland, the place he’s visiting. He wrote that he’s “the very fact” that Democrats “admit to paying, in all probability illegally, Eleven Million {Dollars} to singer Beyoncé for an ENDORSEMENT.”
Democratic officers really reject the declare of an $11 million fee. The White Home didn’t instantly reply to CNN’s request for any proof of a Democratic admission of such a fee.
Trump went on to criticize different funds from the Harris marketing campaign to organizations related to outstanding endorsers. He asserted with out proof that these funds had been inaccurately described in spending data. And he wrongly asserted that it’s “TOTALLY ILLEGAL” to pay for political endorsements, although no federal regulation forbids endorsement funds.
Trump concluded: “Kamala, and all of people who acquired Endorsement cash, BROKE THE LAW. They need to all be prosecuted! Thanks in your consideration to this matter.”
Trump has repeatedly referred to as for the prosecution of political opponents. His Saturday put up about Harris and movie star endorsements was an escalation from a put up in Could, when he mentioned he would name for a “main investigation” on the topic however didn’t explicitly point out prosecutions.