Right Wing Watch’s Jared Holt wrote on Wednesday about a gimmick being promoted by a website called “I Love My Freedom” that is raising money to mail House Speaker Nancy Pelosi thousands of foam bricks as a way to express support for President Trump’s border wall. The site is linked to a Facebook page called “President Donald Trump Fan Club.” The site’s owner, Jack Murphy, has been chronicling the success of his campaign online, claiming this afternoon that the “now viral campaign” had resulted in more than 10,000 foam bricks being sent to Pelosi.
Not bad for a gimmick. But now Trump has paid his fan a particularly Trumpian compliment—claiming Murphy’s idea as his own. A text sent this afternoon from the Trump Make America Great Again Committee—a joint fundraising committee for Trump’s presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee—includes its own image of a brick and this text:
President Trump came up with a brilliant idea to make sure Chuck and Nancy have no choice but to listen to the American people.
We have set a goal to send 100,000 bricks to their offices to prove that WALLS WORK.
The Trump text says that for a contribution of at least $20.20, the committee will send a brick directly to either Pelosi or Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office. Trump’s campaign has also promoted the deal via email, according to the Wall Street Journal, which quotes the email promising “red faux bricks” will include a “fact” about border security, such as an assertion that enough fentanyl entered at the border in 2018 “to kill every American.”
Murphy had been offering Trump supporters a better deal, selling “build the wall” coins for $19.95—which included a foam brick being sent to Pelosi’s office. Perhaps as a Trump booster, Murphy won’t mind joining the long list of small business owners Trump has taken advantage of.
