Donald Trump’s former White House aide is under fire after a video showed him claiming to distribute fake money to homeless people so that they will be arrested when they spend it.

Johnny McEntee, formerly the White House Presidential Personnel Office under the former president, posted a video on TikTok in which he discusses the purported scheme to “clean up the community.”

“So I always keep this fake Hollywood money in my car, so when a homeless person asks for money, and I give them like a $5 bill, I feel good about myself, they feel good,” said McEntee, also a senior advisor to Project 2025. “And then when they go to use it, they get arrested, so I’m actually helping to clean up the community and get them off the street.”

    • Wrench@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Those cannot be reasonably mistaken for real currency. Carefully so, even.

      This person allegedly (from his own mouth) intentionally passed off paper convincing enough to be used in films, as real currency, to people with a high likelihood of mental illness, in the express desire to trick them into using it as real currency so that they get arrested.

      Who knows if any of this is true, but from the asses’ own mouth, that’s a world of difference in intent.

      • Doxatek@mander.xyz
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        7 months ago

        You’re right that no one would think they were real. When i worked at McDonald’s the bastards would pay this at the back window and try and zoom forward and get their food from the next window before the confused money taker could let the person handing out the food know lol

        Not that anyone thought it was real though. You’re definitely still correct

    • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      The people who pass these out are huge assholes…but do honestly need it explained to you why tricking a homeless person into using fake money so they are arrested is not the same as some religious nutter attempting to trick you into reading their proselytization?