John McEntee, a personal aide to Donald Trump while he was president—known as the “body guy”–landed in hot water when he claimed in a TikTok video that he gave homeless people fake money so that they could be arrested when they tried to spend it. In his words, this was so that he “could clean up the community.”
Strangely enough, he posted the video on the account for The Right Stuff, a dating app for U.S. conservatives that he co-founded. Perhaps he thinks that this kind of behavior is a turn on for prospective dates.
“So I always keep this fake Hollywood money in my car so when a homeless person asks for money, then I give him like a fake $5 bill, so I feel good about myself, they feel good,” McEntee said in the video.
“And then, when they go to use it, they get arrested so I’m actually like helping clean up the community. You know, getting them off the street.”
McEntee, a former athlete who played college football for the Huskies, at the University of Connecticut, turned towards politics after college. He began working as a production assistant for Fox News, focusing on social media accounts. His political career gained significant momentum when he joined the Trump administration. However, his tenure was not without controversy. In March 2018, he was dismissed by White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly due to an investigation related to debt from gambling, which affected his security clearance.
Despite this setback, McEntee returned to the White House in 2020 as the Director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office after Donald Trump rehired him. His return marked a significant comeback, and he was known to be a Trump loyalist during and after the presidency. After his time in the White House, McEntee ventured into entrepreneurship, founding The Right Stuff, the dating app on which he posted the video that has outraged the public.
McEntee is back in the Trump fold, currently working on HR for his 2024 campaign and is a senior adviser for the Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Presidential Transition Project.
The second worst person on the planet, after trump, is John McEntee, the former HR director, current advisor, and leader of criminal conman trump’s, conservative agenda. Consider this: if he is this vile and heartless, his hatred must be profound. pic.twitter.com/1ZHAhe8OWp
— San (@sanosbo1) May 12, 2024
The backlash unleashed by McEntee’s outrageous boast took him by surprise and all in damage control mode, he posted, “Just a joke. Everyone, calm down #fyp”
Social media users had a lot more to say, some pointing out that what he was doing was not only morally despicable, but an actual crime.
“Pretty sure that passing off counterfeit bills as real, even to people he views with such disdain as the unhoused, is still illegal,” asserted an X User.
Others took the opportunity to underline that McEntee’s insensitive and unethical behavior reflects the current standards of the GOP. Using the incident to attack Trump’s supporters another said, “This is your MAGA party and today’s Heritage Foundation, now owned by MAGA. This is how they think.”
Another went further and made a comparison, “So #GeorgeFloyd was murdered by a cop in broad daylight for this crime while this douchebag insurrectionist MAGAt from @TeamTrump and #Project2025 gets to go about his privileged life like it’s just another day.”
