Trump Team Asked SO MANY Celebs To Do Taxpayer-Funded COVID Ads - You'll Be SHOCKED Who Said 'Maybe'!

Remember a few weeks ago when we found out the Trump administration was taking millions meant to fight COVID-19 — and spending it on ads to tell people not to worry about it instead?? And that those ads would feature The Parent Trap star Dennis Quaid??

Well, it turns out he was not the only celeb they asked. Not even close.

On Thursday documents leaked concerning the administration’s attempt to create an ad campaign to “defeat despair and inspire hope” amidst the coronavirus crisis. Democrats flagged the campaign for inappropriately using taxpayer money (to the tune of $250 million) to help boost President Donald Trump’s re-election bid instead of serving the public.

One aspect of the campaign was to reach out to possible celebrity spokespeople. In a doc entitled “PSA Celebrity Tracker,” nearly 300 names are listed for potential appearances — only 10 of whom agreed to take part. But that doesn’t mean the rest were hard NOs either…

Just a reminder before we get into which celeb said what, this PSA campaign was meant to do the exact same thing right wingers complain about liberals doing all the time — scoring famous faces to preach their message. Only in this case, very few celebs actually support the Republican party’s backwards anti-LGBT, racist-endearing social policies. Even fewer are PRO-COVID — which, let’s face it, is what Trump’s message is.

Convincing people to let down their guard because the virus isn’t a big deal has been Trump’s number one priority in regards to the pandemic. Why? Because it helps his numbers more if people think things are going well.

So instead of spending money actually fighting the damn virus, the plan was to spend all that taxpayer money to tell people everything was fine.

OK, so that’s what Trump’s people were recruiting for. But who they were trying to snag and how? It’s pretty wild stuff…

The leaked doc includes some very telling “notes” for each celeb, like whether they have arrests on their record — or whether they “fight for gay rights.” Because obviously that’s a hard sell, no matter what Tiffany Trump tries to tell you about Daddy’s LGB-something support.

Here are some examples of the types of notes about each celeb:

Christina Aguilera: “She is an Obama-supporting Democrat and a gay rights supporting liberal”
Maroon 5/Adam Levine: “Liberal Democrat who supported Obama and fights for gay rights”
Justin Timberlake: “Publicly endorsed Obama and supports gay marriage”
Johnny Depp: “Arrested in 1994 and 1989 for violence; appears to be aligned with the liberal left”
Jack Black: “Used his Hollywood Walk of Fame star ceremony to speak out against Trump in 2018; known to be a classic Hollywood liberal.”

Many celebrities wisely outright allegedly declined, including Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldana, Drew Barrymore, Carrie Underwood, Hugh Jackman, Sandra Oh, Viola Davis, Betty White, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

However, most celebs were listed as “pending answer.” LOLz!

Obviously “pending answer” could mean anything from didn’t dignify with a response to didn’t see the email. We’re pretty shocked Trump’s team would even consider some celebs on the apparent list, like Sarah Silverman and Billie Eilish, who have spoken out so strongly against the president. Trump’s people clearly weren’t ignorant of the fact — they quote Billie in their notes as having said Trump “is destroying our country and everything we care about.” And yet they still reached out. Amazing.

But the really big question mark for us was the short list of celebs marked “maybe.”

Alec Baldwin was listed as “Interested but having a baby in a few weeks,” with no mention of his famous role skewering the president on Saturday Night Live. (Meanwhile, former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is mentioned in the notes for her impersonators Amy Poehler and Kate McKinnon.)

Elsewhere in the SNL-verse, there are some seriously eyebrow-raising “maybes.” Maya Rudolph, who plays Kamala Harris, and Seth Meyers, outspoken nightly against Trump, both have notes that “Team is trying to make it work.” Huh?!

Other surprising “maybes” include Jay-Z (“manager talking to him”), Sean Penn (“publicist is talking to him about it again”), Morgan Freeman, and Danny Devito (both of whom are listed as waiting to “see who else at his levels signs before discussing”). Y’all. Really?! You want to see who else has red hands before you take the blood money??

John Krasinski, who was noted to have “some conservative political views” was a maybe — but maybe he was too busy profiting off the coronavirus on his own…

In the end, Dennis Quaid and Marc Anthony were the only two listed as having “accepted” the offer on the doc, though the admin later approved gospel singer CeCe Winans, Hasidic singer Shulem Lemmer, Dr. Oz, Billy Ray Cyrus, Miranda Lambert, Garth Brooks, Dwyane Wade, and Enrique Iglesias. According to the Washington Post, only three of them had sat for interviews, and eventually all withdrew their consent for those interviews to be used.

You can see the entire tracker document HERE.

Overall, it’s a giant mess. Not much of a surprise when it comes to Team Trump, but a mess all the same. We do have to wonder about those “maybes” and what they thought they would be agreeing to — did they really think an administration who let more than 220,000 people die would make a responsible coronavirus campaign weeks before the election? Were their reps just blowing smoke in typical Hollywood fashion??

Better yet, who approved a multimillion dollar ad campaign for the Trump admin, anyway? Nobody really thought that cash would be used for anything other than personal gain, right?

We REALLY hope it doesn’t take another four years for people to wise up to this man’s BS. Make a voting plan, guys!

[Image via WENN/Instar/The Rock/Instagram/Billie Eilish/SGN/NowThisNews/YouTube.]