OpinionMichelle Cottle
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By Michelle Cottle
Michelle Cottle writes about national politics for Opinion and is a host of the podcast “Matter of Opinion.”
Donald Trump is someone you should think carefully about hitching your financial fortunes to. The guy is a gifted carnival barker, no doubt. But when it comes to serious business, he is a bad bet. Many of his ventures, from vodka and steaks to casinos and “university” degrees, have flopped like dying fish. Declaring corporate bankruptcy seems to be one of his favorite hobbies. And even when he wriggles away from failure largely unscathed, the other parties involved aren’t always so fortunate. Where money is involved, anyone still foolish enough to crawl into bed with him should be prepared for the experience to end in tears.
Which leads me to gently note: Hey, Republican Party, pay attention! You are being herded toward potential financial ruin. The red flags are smacking you in the face. Wake up and smell the grift!
One might assume that a presidential nominee who generates as much devotion as Mr. Trump would be a financial boon to his party. One would be wrong. With Mr. Trump, everything is about Mr. Trump. Other candidates and committees are an afterthought, left to squabble over his scraps. Which might not be problematic if the party’s money machine were whirring along smoothly. But it is not. Whether we’re talking about the battle for Congress or the basic health of the state parties, the G.O.P. is going through a rough financial patch, fueled in no small part by the MAGA king and his minions.
The most recent campaign finance reports show that his campaign coffers are notably lighter than President Biden’s. Crunching the numbers, Axios noted recently, “The Biden campaign and the D.N.C. ended February with more than twice as much cash on hand ($97.5 million) as Trump and the R.N.C. ($44.8 million).” While the Republican base may be smitten with Mr. Trump, plenty of big-money donors are skittish about bankrolling his nonsense. The former president has been scrambling to close the gap, leering at potential funders as if they were contestants at the Miss Universe pageant.
Now with Mr. Trump the de facto nominee, some top donors will hold their noses and start paying their tributes. But how do you build a strong party when at least part of your money is going to the nominee’s eye-popping legal bills? Being multiply indicted costs big bucks (more than $100 million and counting in his case). The former president has avoided paying those expenses with his own money so far — court costs are for suckers! — instead relying on his fans’ donations to accounts related to his 2020 election-fraud lies. But those accounts are drying up. Fresh income streams must be found. Anyone need a $59.99 Bible?
Asked last month if she thought Republican voters would support the Republican National Committee footing Mr. Trump’s legal costs, Lara Trump, soon to be the committee’s co-chair, declared, “Absolutely.” I mean, what else is a good daughter-in-law supposed to say? Still, this possibility has raised enough eyebrows among donors that another Trump lackey, Chris LaCivita, who now oversees the R.N.C.’s operations, has vowed that committee funds will not be used for such.
Except! That doesn’t rule out slippery arrangements like the one in the invitation to an April 6 fund-raiser being hosted in Palm Beach, Fla., by the Trump 47 Committee, the fund-raising effort by the Trump campaign and the R.N.C. Individual attendees may contribute up to $814,600, with donations distributed accordingly: The first $6,600, the maximum allowed by federal law, will go into Mr. Trump’s campaign coffers. The next $5,000 (again, the legal limit) will flow to the Save America PAC, which is the primary vehicle used to pay Mr. Trump’s legal bills. The next tranche, up to $413,000, will go to the R.N.C., which, as noted, has effectively been turned into a Trump family joint. Anything remaining will trickle down to the party committees in various states.
So to review: Under the new fund-raising agreement, the entity handling Mr. Trump’s legal bills takes its bite before the party committees receive a penny. That smells about right.
As you might imagine, there are better places those dollars could go to help Republicans this election cycle. Multiple state parties have been plagued by financial troubles, including in Arizona, Michigan and Georgia — battleground states that could easily decide not only the presidential race but also control of the Senate and House. But time and money are being wasted on Trumpian drama, with factional infighting, poor leadership and, of course, legal troubles.
In Georgia the previous head of the state party was among those indicted on charges relating to efforts to overturn the 2020 election. In Arizona the state party spent last year begging the R.N.C. for help digging out of the hole that the then-chairman, Jeff DeWit, blamed on legal fallout from 2020. Complicating matters, he abruptly resigned in January after Kari Lake, the MAGAtastic election denier leading the Republican Senate field there, released a recording in which he seemed to offer her money to drop her 2024 bid. And in Michigan the infighting has been so nasty over the past year or so that physical fights broke out, even as concerns about the party’s finances helped spur a coup against Kristina Karamo, a Trump devotee elected party chairwoman in February 2023. Voted out this past January, she refused to accept the decision until a judge ordered her to stand down in late February.
Generally speaking, parties in chaos do not attract fat checks from potential donors.
Then there is the battle for control of the House and Senate. Republicans are feeling pretty upbeat about their Senate recruits, in part because many of the nominees are rich enough to self-fund their campaigns. Which is a good thing for the party, since campaign finance filings show the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee with $7 million more on hand than its Republican counterpart.
Life for House Republicans looks even more unsettling, with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sitting on $14 million more than the Republican committee. Worse still, the red team’s fund-raising is suffering from having swapped out its old, establishment-friendly speaker for a purer MAGA model with far inferior buckraking chops. Kevin McCarthy might have been a weasel, but he knew how to work donors, which is an important part of the job. Mike Johnson has many fine qualities, I’m sure. But he lacks Mr. McCarthy’s donor network and schmoozing skills. His ultraconservative religious positions are said to make some people uneasy, and — how do I put this gently? — he doesn’t exactly radiate competent leadership.
I refer you again to the point about chaos not inspiring serious donors.
Rarely has a political party been more desperately in need of a leader who can calm the waters, unify the feuding factions and charm the money men and women. Instead, Republicans have fallen in line behind a guy who has zero loyalty to the party, who cares only how it can serve him and who would rather strip it for parts than invest a nickel in its general well-being.
This deep into the Trump era, no one can say they weren’t warned.
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Michelle Cottle writes about national politics for Opinion and is a host of the podcast “Matter of Opinion.” She has covered Washington and politics since the Clinton administration.
@mcottle
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