A Small Loan Of A Million Dollars — Extreme close-up of Donald Trump's face tinted purple, mouth open mid-speech

A Small Loan Of A Million Dollars

2015catchphraseclassic

Published August 3, 2026

"A Small Loan of a Million Dollars" is a Donald Trump catchphrase from an October 2015 NBC Today town hall, where he described how his father funded his real estate career with what he called modest starter money. The line went viral within hours on Reddit and YouTube, becoming shorthand for wealthy people downplaying inherited advantages.

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Overview

"A Small Loan of a Million Dollars" is a Donald Trump catchphrase pulled from an October 2015 NBC Today town hall, where the then-Republican presidential candidate described how his father funded his early real estate business1. Internet users seized on the phrase within hours, mocking Trump as out of touch for framing a million-dollar handout as a modest starter sum3.

The quote works as ironic shorthand for wealthy people minimizing their inherited advantages. Adjusted for inflation, a 1968-era million would be worth roughly $6.8 million in 2015 dollars, per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI calculator1. The line became a punchline in edited videos, YouTube commentary, hashtag jokes, and Urban Dictionary entries that logged it as Trump's way of bragging about his riches5.

Origin & Background

Platform
NBC Today (broadcast) / Reddit and YouTube (viral spread)
Creator
Donald Trump
Date
2015

On October 26, 2015, Trump appeared at a live town hall segment on NBC's Today, filmed in New Hampshire during his 2016 primary campaign1. An audience member asked whether Trump had ever been told "no" by anyone outside his family. Trump answered that his life had "not been easy," that he had "started off in Brooklyn," and that his father gave him "a small loan of a million dollars" to launch his real estate career1.

How It Spread

Later that day, Reddit user jlew24asu submitted the story to r/NotTheOnion2, where it collected more than 5,700 votes and around 2,000 comments over the following month3. Twitter users piled on with the hashtag #smallloan, joking that Trump was insulated enough to imagine a million-dollar 1960s real estate stake as a modest launchpad1.

YouTube parodies followed within days. Between October 30 and November 19, 2015, uploads from Bajan Entertainment, Pyrocynical, Nexxiar, and Flater remixed the clip: one cut it against an exasperated reaction shot, another titled "A Million Dollars" pulled over 290,000 views in three weeks, and Flater spliced Trump's line into the 1986 Bonnie Tyler music video for "Holding Out for a Hero"3.

The joke leaked into activism-shaped satire too. On November 17, 2015, a Change.org petition titled "Give Pyrocynical a Small Loan of a Million Dollars" collected over 2,300 signatures within a week, asking supporters to open their wallets for the YouTuber because "pyrocynicals father was not easy on him"4.

How to Use This Meme

The catchphrase typically appears as a sarcastic caption on posts where someone downplays a large sum of money, brags about family help while claiming to be self-made, or minimizes inherited advantages. It's often paired with photos of Trump, luxury goods, or wealth-flexing screenshots. A common convention swaps "a million dollars" for whatever absurd figure fits the target, keeping "a small loan of" in scare quotes to signal the joke.

Frequently Asked Questions