Donald Trump pushed his own shopping cart through a food pantry in Utah on Monday, something photographers have never witnessed from the billionaire president.
Before a speech at the state capitol in Salt Lake City, Trump toured Welfare Square, a food pantry and relief aid processing center run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
‘Good stuff!’ the president said as he pushed the cart.
He joked with crowd in the capitol rotunda an hour later that ‘I went around the store. I wanted a nice can of tuna fish and they had plenty!’
‘Good stuff!’ President Donald Trump pushed his own shopping cart through Welfare Square, a Mormon church-run food pantry, on Monday in Utah
The billionaire didn’t fill the cart himself but pushed it as he toured the Salt Lake City facility with church leaders and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch
Trump He joked during his speech an hour later in the state capitol rotunda that ‘I went around the store. I wanted a nice can of tuna fish and they had plenty!’
The president took a moment to inspect a can of corn while he spoke with LDS officials about Welfare Square
In addition to being a food bank for the needy, Welfare Square is a food processing and staging ground for packaging food aid destined for more than 120 missions worldwide.
LDS official Henry Eyring told the president that it is ‘a place where we have food and materials that we give to the poor.’
‘This is simply an example of what we do across the world, the idea being that we think we have an obligation to God to look out for the people who, without our aid, have tragedy in their lives, be it poverty or hunger,’ he said.
Welfare Square is a food pantry, a thrift store, and a food processing and staging ground for packaging food aid destined for more than 120 missions worldwide.
Utah’s poor – and people in trouble worldwide – get food, clothing and other supplies from Welfare Square
In addition to distributing food to Utah’s needy, Welfare Square is a staging point for food and supplies headed for natural disaster sites and at least 120 church missions aroud the world
The president was in Salt Lake City to sign a proclamation reversing the expansion of two national monuments, whose nearly 3 million acres represented more land than Delaware and Rhode Island
Welfare Square was the staging ground for the LDS church’s supply network that brought relief aid to New Orleans, Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Russell Nelson, the LDS president, said he had just returned from China where native-born Mormon converts had brought supplies from Welfare Square ‘for schoolchildren who didn’t have means of getting what they needed to go to school.’
But Trump stole the show, pushing a shopping cart like an ordinary guy, with Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch and church leaders in tow.
LDS official Henry Eyring (right) told the president that Welfare Square is ‘an example of what we do across the world, the idea being that we think we have an obligation to God to look out for the people who, without our aid, have tragedy in their lives, be it poverty or hunger’
He said in his speech that he had ‘just come from touring Welfare Square with Senator Hatch and some amazing people from the leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints.’
‘Special. I spent a lot of time with them. … They really help people. Incredible. After our visit I can truly say firsthand that Utah’s awesome natural beauty is exceeded only by the warmth and grace and hospitality of its citizens.’
‘This state has many natural treasures,’ Trump said, ‘but its greatest treasure by far is its people. And we will ensure the right of the people to live according to the faith in their hearts – which is why we will always protect your religious liberty.’
Trump was in Utah to sign a proclamation reversing decisions of Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama that dramatically expanded a pair of massive national monuments that had locked up nearly 3 million acres of land from virtually any public use.