Trump reportedly wrote a campaign check to Argentina's president in 2015. It bounced.

Argentine President Mauricio Macri greets President Trump
(Image credit: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images)

In August 2016, when Hillary Clinton was widely expected to be elected president, Argentina's new president regaled Secretary of State John Kerry and other senior U.S. officials with a story about Clinton's underdog rival, Donald Trump, Axios reports. Argentina's Mauricio Macri, elected president in 2015, has a long history with Trump, dating back to a contentious business deal between Trump and Macri's father. So Macri was surprised, he told the Americans, when Trump called him up out of the blue during Macri's campaign to offer help.

As Macri reportedly told the story, imitating Trump during the recounting, Trump told him he'd been watching Macri, adding, "I remember you fondly and I remember the business deal." Since the deal hadn't gone well, Macri said, he responded: "Fondly? Fondly, you son of a gun?" Then Trump offered help, and Macri shrugged it off until a FedEx envelope with a check arrived. The three people who told Axios the story couldn't agree on whether Trump's check was for $500 or $5,000, but they all remembered the punch line: "It bounced."

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.