Remember the old adage, “No good deed goes unpunished?”
Seldom has that been truer than for former President Donald Trump, who came under familiar attack from the far left after he… provided clean water to the people afflicted by the East Palestine, Ohio, debacle?
Trump, as he often does despite the media’s insistence to the contrary, went about performing quite the random act of kindness when he visited East Palestine on Wednesday and helped share some crucial goods, including bottled water and cleaning supplies.
Given the ongoing travesty that East Palestine residents are grappling with, having some extra Lysol wipes and bottled water sounds like a positively good thing to do.
And yet, that hasn’t stopped some truly unhinged leftists from deriding Trump.
Anti-Trump lawyer (his Twitter bio literally touts that he helped prosecute Trump University) Tristan Snell appeared to be one of the first to criticize Trump’s generosity after noticing the labeling on the bottles:
So Donald Trump shreds the rail safety rules that would have prevented the East Palestine disaster, then he goes to East Palestine and brings them Trump Water that might actually be at least 13 years old (the business went under in 2010)? Got it.
— Tristan Snell (@TristanSnell) February 22, 2023
“So Donald Trump shreds the rail safety rules that would have prevented the East Palestine disaster, then he goes to East Palestine and brings them Trump Water that might actually be at least 13 years old (the business went under in 2010)? Got it,” Snell wrote on Twitter.
Do you think President Trump puts America first?
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Podcaster and comedian Paula Poundstone went about proliferating undue fear by citing the (technically correct) assertion that bottled water should only have a 2-year shelf life because while water itself doesn’t expire, the chemicals in the plastic bottle can begin seeping into the water.
I looked it up on a site called “Greener Choices.” The water in the Trump water will not expire, but the plastic bottle will leach chemicals into the water over time. Drinking water of 2-3 years old is not recommended. Trump Water was disscontinued in 2010.
— Paula Poundstone (@paulapoundstone) February 22, 2023
Another Twitter user put out an all-capitalized warning of “DO NOT DRINK.”
Traitor Trump’s bottled water expired 13 years ago when Trump discontinued it back in 2010. This water has plastic molecules and plastic toxins in it. It also has strong bacteria in it. DO NOT DRINK IT, throw it away. It can get you sick. https://t.co/BDxCmYRdu5
— THE WINK WINK SOCIETY. (@MiskanisMary) February 23, 2023
Ironically, that last tweet included a link to Newsweek, the very same publication that had to put out a fact-check on these dubious claims on Thursday.
In short: No, Trump did not hand out ancient bottles of water to the residents of East Palestine.
The primary concern of worrywarts like Snell and Poundstone is that “Trump Water” was discontinued in 2010, meaning that, at best, those bottles of water were a dozen years old.
Well, turns out that Snell and Poundstone appeared to be conflating the water that Trump brought to Ohio for “Trump Ice,” a specific brand of Trump-endorsed bottled water that did discontinue in 2010 (it was quasi-revived as “Trump Natural Spring Water” in 2015, according to Newsweek.)
Indeed, looking at some social media videos circulating online, the water given to East Palestine was not “Trump Ice.”
Here is a video of people unloading just some of the goods that Trump provided. Notice the blue, white and green labels on all the bottled water?
Tens of thousands of pounds of goods, food, water being delivered to the people of East Palestine, Ohio right now before Trump’s visit.
Trump paid for all of it.
Number of goods delivered from the Biden Administration: 0. pic.twitter.com/QQADqZl9Uy
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 22, 2023
That’s a far cry from “Trump Ice,” the ostensibly 13-year-old water, which brandishes a red aesthetic and label:
First pic us the Trump Water being handed out in Ohio. Second pic is an actual bottle of 2013 Trump Ice. See the difference?
That’s Kirkland water being passed out that’s been repackaged as Trump Water. It’s not old water, just new labels on new water. pic.twitter.com/lzTeewUpTM
— Shawn Kolozsy (@KolozsyShawn) February 23, 2023
While the above tweet doesn’t cite how they know the bottled water is from Kirkland/Costco (it certainly looks the part), it still makes it painfully obvious that Trump is not dumping decade-old, unused bottles of water on the already-languishing residents of East Palestine.
This is all to say: Leftists have too much time on their hands, combing through every random act of kindness from Trump like it’s the Zapruder cut to see if they can “get him.”
That’s certainly par for the course with the left. It’s almost a hobby for far leftists to find the absolute worst in anything good, based on a random detail they think they know more about than they actually do.
Wait until they see what’s on the hats he gave to East Palestine.
