Tag: donations
Donald Trump

'Empty The Coffers': GOP Panic As Trump Legal Costs Siphon Off Donations

Former President Donald Trump's mounting legal bills are threatening the Republican Party's ability to fundraise ahead of a pivotal presidential election.

The Washington Post reports that the Republican National Committee (RNC) is already starting to fret about its finances given that it's trailing the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in fundraising by an almost three-to-one margin. The DNC has roughly $25 million in cash on hand, compared to the RNC's $8.7 million. And between President Joe Biden's campaign and the Trump campaign, the difference looms even larger: Biden had more than $56 million in cash available by the end of January 2024, whereas Trump had less than $31 million. At the end of 2023, Biden also led in unique donors, with 172,000 to Trump's 143,000 unique donors.

Leading GOP figures are now starting to question whether that gap can be closed at all given that Trump still needs to pay for his legal defense in four looming criminal trials this year.

"[Trump] needs to raise money. Look what Democrats are raising. I told him, they are going to empty the coffers here," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told the Post. "It’s one of the things that concerns me."

Aside from his legal bills for defending himself from 91 felony charges, the former president has also been crushed under the weight of multiple civil judgments. Earlier this month, writer E. Jean Carroll won an $83.3 million judgment against Trump for defamation, and a New York clerk recently entered in a total cost of $454 million for Trump's civil fraud judgment, when taking interest into account. The ex-president is now facing roughly $111,000 per day in new interest until that judgment is paid, even as he appeals the verdict. The Post estimated that in 2023 alone, roughly 23 percent of all money raised by Trump's affiliated political action committees went toward paying his legal costs.

Unlike Trump, Biden and the DNC are unburdened by legal woes, and are free to spend on advertising and organizing in both competitive battleground states along with high-profile US Senate races.

"It's been a tough couple of weeks if you are Donald Trump and also like money,” Biden rapid response director Ammar Moussa told the Post. "While Trump, with the help of his ultrarich donors, burn cash paying for Trump’s... challenges, our campaign is proud of its historic war chest whose funds are going to reach the voters who will decide the election this November."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

The Buck Never Stops At Donald Trump: He Takes No Responsibility For His Actions

The Buck Never Stops At Donald Trump: He Takes No Responsibility For His Actions

Published with permission from AlterNet.

Way back in January, Donald Trump got himself a ton of prime publicity on the backs of veterans. He organized a benefit that he said was for them. But really he did it because he didn’t feel like debating other GOP presidential candidates that night.

At the event, he boasted that he’d raised $6 million, including $1 million that would come from his own pocket. Not too shabby, as he would say. But when reporters asked him later where the money went, including whether Donald had, indeed, donated $1 million, he told them he didn’t have to account for the funds.

This is the way Donald Trump rolls. He takes no responsibility for his actions. He refuses to be held to account. He collects donations for veterans but won’t disclose the money trail. He’s so delinquent on paying his taxes, dozens of municipalities must sue him to get what’s owed. He urges supporters to beat protesters at his rallies, then denies inciting violence. Donald Trump believes he should always be praised and never held liable, no matter what he does.

And that includes pledging cash to veterans and not actually paying it. It’s great to conduct a fundraiser and promise money. It’s much better to actually fork over the donations to the veterans groups so they can help returning servicemen and women.

At the fundraiser in Des Moines, Iowa, on Jan. 28, Trump announced to the crowd, “We just cracked $6 million! Right? $6 million.” That included his gift. He told the gathering, “I don’t want to be called a politician. All talk, no action – I refuse to be called a politician. Donald Trump gave $1 million. Okay?” That made it sound like he’d already written the check.

But he hadn’t.

In May, Trump told a Washington Post reporter asking for an account of the money, “Why should I give you records? I don’t have to give you records.”

That was followed by Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski lying about it, telling the Washington Post that Trump had ponied up his share.

“The money is fully spent. Mr. Trump’s money is fully spent,” Lewandowski told the Post on May 21. Though, Lewandowski added, only $4.5 million, not the promised $6 million, was raised.

Ok, fine. But where did all that money go, the Post wanted to know. Lewandowski said that was nobody’s business.

“He’s not going to share that information,” the campaign manager said.

So if Trump is president, maybe he’ll say, “I don’t have to give you records,” or “I am not going to share that information,” about how he spent tax dollars or how he deployed troops or how he failed to force Mexico to pay for that “big, beautiful wall.”

Unable to find veterans groups that received the money, the Post took to Twitter to seek them out. The question, basically, was: Did any veteran, anywhere get a dime from that fundraiser that Donald used to envelop himself in all that big, beautiful publicity?

Twitter-azzi Trump took that goad. That very evening, four months after the fundraiser, he called a veterans group that had given him an award and promised them his $1 million. The Trump check is dated the next day, May 24, when he held a press conference to attack reporters who had tried to hold the candidate accountable for distributing to veterans the money he promised them.

Trump contradicted his own campaign manager who said $4.5 million was raised, contending it was $5.6 million. And he contended that he never promised $6 million.

“I didn’t say six,” he asserted, despite video evidence in which he clearly says $6 million.

The presumptive Republican nominee for president doesn’t think he’s responsible to stand behind his words even when he says them to millions of people on national television.

Not only does Trump refuse to be answerable, he jumps to blame others when things go wrong. That was the conclusion USA Today came to after reviewing the 3,500 legal actions he filed or that were filed against him over the past three decades, an unprecedented number for a presidential candidate.

“While he is quick to take credit for anything associated with his name, he is just as quick to distance himself from failures and to place responsibility on others,” the paper wrote after analyzing the lawsuits.

In the mountain of litigation are suits that demonstrate Trump’s refusal to accept responsibility for even the most basic of civic duties – paying taxes.

Trump is a tax shirker. To build his Trump towers and casinos, he uses public highways and bridges and municipal inspectors and licensing agencies that other citizens pay for with their tax dollars, but he doesn’t pay until sued by local governments in courts – also paid for with the tax dollars of the non-delinquent.

New York placed liens on Trump properties for unpaid taxes at least 36 times. Local governments across the country where Trump owns golf courses and casinos wrangled with Trump over his property taxes, including one case where he spent $45 million to upgrade a 140-acre golf course and 75,000-square-foot clubhouse, then claimed the property was worth only $1.4 million for tax purposes. In addition, his companies have been involved in more than 100 tax disputes.

Trump wants to run the government but doesn’t feel he’s accountable for paying the taxes necessary to run the government or, for example, to cover the cost of federal benefits for those veterans he claims he loves so much.

He’s just never responsible. Just like he claims he’s never liable for the violence that keeps breaking out at his rallies. It happened again in San Jose last week.

When protesters began appearing his speeches, he said things like this on Feb. 1: “Knock the crap out of him, would you? Seriously, okay, just knock the hell, I promise you I will pay your legal fees.”

Then he denied that inflamed violence. Nope. Not him. He didn’t do it.

He’s the opposite of the man who was the first Republican president. That was Abraham Lincoln. When confronted with adversity, President Lincoln took responsibility.  Lincoln often shouldered blame when others were at fault. The Edwin Stanton incident is a good example.

After Gen. George B. McClellan’s failure in 1862 to use his greater force to take Richmond, Va., then the Southern capital, the press and public blamed the devastating loss on War Secretary Stanton. Many demanded Stanton’s dismissal. It would have been easy for Lincoln to throw Stanton under the bus and replace him.

Instead, Lincoln gave a speech saying that as commander in chief, he was responsible for the defeat. Lincoln said he was answerable for all union losses, no one else.

By contrast, when the union army would win a battle, Lincoln was the first award credit to the troops and the general.

It’s a measure of the man. In good times, Lincoln generously gave others recognition. In bad, he said the buck stopped at his desk.

In all times, Trump says he is really, really great, greater than anyone else, and the buck never, ever stops at his big, beautiful desk.

Leo W. Gerard is president of the United Steelworkers union. President Barack Obama appointed him to the President’s Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations. Follow him on Twitter @USWBlogger

Photo: Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses the media regarding donations to veterans foundations at Trump Tower in Manhattan, New York, U.S., May 31, 2016.  REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

#EndorseThis: Trump Yells At Journalists For An Hour, Previews Presidential Press Conferences

#EndorseThis: Trump Yells At Journalists For An Hour, Previews Presidential Press Conferences

When Donald Trump announced that he would be giving a press conference today to discuss his misdealings with veterans’ groups, members of the media covering his remarks should have known they were in for a wild ride. Trump had lied about his donations to veterans’ groups for months: After skipping a Fox News debate because he was afraid of Megyn Kelly because, apparently, the network had treated him unfairly, Trump put together his own Celebrate-The-Troops fundraising spectacular, after which he claimed to have raised $6 million for various veterans’ groups, through an account maintained by his campaign.

Weeks later, many of the veterans’ groups he had claimed would receive money from him hadn’t even heard from Donald Trump at all. Investigations by various outlets into how much money Trump had cumulatively given to the groups all came up with figures in the $3-4 million range, nothing close to what Trump promised. There was also no evidence — until only a week ago — that Trump had given the $1 million he had promised to veterans’ groups.

All of that to say: The relentless investigations of the news media forced Trump to give the $1 million he promised, and they forced him to call up his rich friend who he had claimed donated a cumulative $6 million… to actually raise $6 million.

Donald Trump rarely holds press conferences to “clear the air” about anything, and to do so about millions of missing dollars that were supposedly donated to veterans’ groups cut especially deep, as Trump has painted himself as a champion of veterans causes.

I’ve included the entire press conference below to highlight to consistency and relentlessness of Donald Trump’s demonization of the press — the same press that exposed widespread problems with the Department of Veterans Affairs. The same press that dutifully reported Trump’s claims of having donated — to Trump’s great benefit — $6 million to veterans’ groups, including $1 million of his own money. The same press that, doing their job, badgered Trump for proof that such donations had been made, and the same press that, ultimately, pressured Trump into doing the right thing.

After Donald Trump lists some of the groups he’s given money to — the exact thing the press has asked for and failed to receive for months — he takes questions from journalists in attendance, starting at 13:54.

Photo and video: MSNBC. 

Trump Claims To Aid Veterans, But Is He The World’s Least Charitable Billionaire?

Trump Claims To Aid Veterans, But Is He The World’s Least Charitable Billionaire?

Donald Trump wants voters to believe that he cares deeply about veterans and proved it by skipping Thursday’s Republican debate to raise money for organizations serving them.

But the billionaire developer’s latest stunt was all about him and his feud with Fox News, not about helping those who served. While he did raise $6 million (including $1 million of his own money), those funds all went to the Donald J. Trump Foundation — a tax-exempt non-profit entity that generally gives barely $1 million a year to charity, let alone to veterans’ groups (the last time it disbursed more than a million dollars was in 2012). Indeed, Trump is reputed to be “the least charitable billionaire in the world.”

He donated $5.5 million between 2009 and 2013, a tiny drop in the bucket for a man who is apparently worth $4.5 billion. According to the latest filings available, his foundation donated only $540,000 in 2014 — with $100,000, a fifth of all donations, going to a group listed as “Citizens United.” If that is the same group whose Supreme Court litigation led to the legalization of limitless political campaign expenditures, it received 10 times the amount of money that the Green Beret Foundation, a charity that helps Green Berets when they return home, received from the Trump Foundation in 2014.

His foundation’s record validates claims by veterans groups that they were being used as props in Trump’s campaign to make him seem the victim of Fox News.

Paul Rieckhoff, the founder of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, tweeted before the Trump fundraising event: “If offered, @IAVA will decline donations from Trump’s event. We need strong policies from candidates, not to be used for political stunts.” Founded in 2005, IAVA has more than 180,000 members and provides support for over 2.8 million veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts, according to its website.

Trump’s foundation, for its part, released a list of the charities that will be receiving the money raised at his counter-programing event. It includes 22 veterans organizations from over a dozen states. But the campaign has not commented on how the groups were selected or how the money will be distributed. If the money is distributed evenly, each organization would stand to receive around $272,000.

By avoiding the last Republican debate before the Iowa primary, Trump sent a clear message to the Republican establishment. He doesn’t need their approval to win over voters.

But it isn’t clear Trump won that battle, even if the debate had the second lowest ratings in this election cycle. The presidential campaign has been going on for nearly a year, the debate was the seventh one for the Republican candidates and it was held on a weeknight. Those factors may explain the lower ratings — and more Americans tuned in for the debate than for Trump’s rival event.