How Many Beauty Pageants Does "The Donald" Own and Other Trump Trivia Questions

Answer a series of forehead-slapping anecdotal factoids. It's up to you to weigh each fact in each anecdotal factoid. They're tricky. One might seem like total B.S. until it's revealed to be strangely and disturbingly "True." Another anecdotal factoid might seem to contain all solid and verifiable facts until it's revealed to be yet one more big fat garden variety "Bald-Faced Lie." And here's the trickiest part: an anecdotal factoid might even be "Half-True"; in other words, a mishmosh of truths and bald-faced lies, where you don't know where one ends and the other begins, much like the usual slop served by Madison Avenue, Washington D.C., and the Internet in its entirety.

Category: The Donald (not the Duck) Quiz

Decide for yourself, and mark "T" for "Truth", "F" for "Bald-Faced Lie" or "TF" for "Half-Truth" in the blank slot next to each factoid.

The answers will be revealed on the next page.

1) __ Donald Trump not only owns the Miss Universe and Miss USA pageants, he also recently bought the Miss America contest. The 2008 pageant will once again be held in Atlantic City. The Donald himself and "American Idol's" Simon Cowell will act as the show's co-hosts for the first time.

2) __ In 2003, when Trump's limousine had a flat tire on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, a stranger stopped and changed the tire. As a reward, Trump paid off the good Samaritan's mortgage.

3) __ In April 2007, the "Battle of the Billionaires" superstar wrestling match took place in Detroit. The contenders were Donald Trump against World Wrestling Entertainment owner Vince McMahon. Although Trump "won" the match, McMahon accomplished the unthinkable and tore off The Donald's toupee.

4) __ Trump's Palm Beach, Florida home, Mar-a-lago, was originally owned by Marjorie Merriweather Post and husband E.F. Hutton. Mrs. Post died in 1973, willing her home to the U.S. government to be used as the winter White House. Although Presidents Nixon and Ford had visited the mansion once, neither one spent the night there. Because Mar-a-lago's upkeep was too expensive, the federal government gave it back to Mrs. Post's foundation. In 1981, Mar-a-lago was sold to a member of the Saudi royal family, who painted all of the estate's neo-classical Greek nude statues flesh pink, mortifing old line Palm Beach residents. After the city of Palm Beach launched a successful lawsuit against the sheikh, he sold Mar-a-logo to Donald Trump at half his original purchase price. Trump immediately restored the statues to their original color.

5) __ In 1994, Trump cut through federal government red tape and purchased a MiG fighter jet from the Russian government. He parks the jet on the roof of the Trump World Tower overlooking United Nations Square in Manhattan.

For fun, Trump likes to fly his MiG low over fellow billionaire Warren Buffett's Manhattan penthouse.

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Here are the answers for the The Donald (not the Duck) Quiz.

Answers:

A reminder: "T" is for "Truth", "F" is for "Bald-Faced Lie" or "TF" is for "Half-Truth".

1) TF: This anecdote is both true and false. It's true that Donald Trump owns the Miss Universe and Miss USA pageants. It's false that he also owns the Miss America contest. However, in 2005, after ABC dumped its broadcast of the Miss America pageant because of low ratings, Trump did approach the Miss America Organization to inquire about purchasing the contest. So far, this hasn't happened.

2) F: It's false that Trump paid off a Good Samaritan's mortgage after the stranger stopped and changed the tire on his limousine. This was yet one more version of an urban legend told about a variety of wealthy celebrities including Mrs. Nat King Cole, Perry Como, and more recently Bill Gates.

3) TF: This anecdote is both true and false. It's true that the "Battle of the Billionaires" superstar wrestling match took place in Detroit. It's false that Trump and McMahon fought each other in a wrestling ring. The actual match was between wrestler stand-ins for the billionaires: Bobby Lashley for Trump and "The Samoan Bulldozer" for McMahon. Trump's proxy "won" the match.

As for Trump's toupee, it has not yet been proved that his hairdo is anything other than a bad comb-over.

4) TF: This anecdote is both true and false. It's true that Mar-a-lago was originally owned by Marjorie Merriweather Post and husband E.F. Hutton. It's also true that Mrs. Post willed her home to the U.S. government to be used as the winter White House. Also true, Presidents Nixon and Ford had visited the mansion once, but neither one spent the night there. And it's true that the federal government gave it back to Mrs. Post's foundation.

It's false that the Mar-a-lago was sold to a member of the Saudi royal family, who painted all of the estate's statues flesh pink. This shiekh and the statues incident actually occurred in Beverly Hills, California, and had nothing to do with Trump.

In 1985, Donald Trump bought Mar-a-lago from the Post Foundation after several other offers fell through.

5) F: It's false that Trump owns a Russian MiG fighter jet. In the nineties, software billionaire Lawrence Ellison tried to buy a MiG, but couldn't get past U.S. government restrictions.

SOURCES:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/11/entertainment/main679739.shtml

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/01/ten_questions_w.html

"Trump wins at Wrestlemania", Caris Davis, People, URL: (http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20033286,00.html)

History and memories behind Mar-a-lago", Thom Smith, Palm Beach Post, URL: (http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/accent/epaper/2005/12/17/a11d_maralago_intro_1217.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=2)

"Town fines Trump", Tim O'Meilia, Palm Beach Post, URL: (http://www.palmbeachpost.com/search/content/local_news/epaper/2006/10/31/s1b_trumpflag_1031.html)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivana_Trump

http://www.snopes.com/luck/trump.asp