President Donald Trump is heading into the midterms with ruthless fundraising and a huge war chest, both in his own committees and in the super PACs supporting him, that he can use to protect vulnerable Republicans from whatever onslaught is coming their way. But there's a big problem standing in the way, former GOP strategist Tim Miller told MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace on Wednesday's edition of "Deadline: White House."
"Tim, I know there's a lot of sort of political press around the mega-money machine, but you have to be able to deploy the money competently and strategically," said Wallace. "And I wonder what you make of the money situation right now."
"Yeah, two thoughts on this," said Miller, a frequent critic of the administration. "One, the Republicans are going to have more money this midterm, I think, for the first time in a decade or two ... but the Democrats have actually been better at fundraising since Obama. And so that is something the Democrats are going to have to contend with."
"Donald Trump, if you go back to last year, what was he doing this time last year? Shaking people down, like shaking down CEOs, shaking down the richest people in the world. They were funding his ballroom ... he's still doing that," said Miller. "Whenhe first came in, he was supereffective at getting richpeople to, you know, do favorsfor them in exchange forgetting a bag for his super PAC.So they're going to have a tonof money."
"Here's the problem,though: like advertising, youneed to be able to havesomething to sell," said Miller. "You know, ifthe dogs won't eat the dog food —it's the old phrase inadvertising — it doesn't do youany good. And right now,if people are experiencing real pain economically, and ifpeople are looking at them andthinking, this guy, you know,doesn't have his eye on theball at all, and I don't feellike my concerns or grievancesor needs are being met. Theycan run all the ads they wantand it's not going to work."
"Sowhat they can do is go intothese red districts," said Miller. "Some ofthose states I was talkingabout in the last segment, youknow, and save ground, right, going to Iowa and, and, you know, smear the Democratic candidate and try to get their number down with Republican voters and they'll probably be able to use their money to do that relatively effectively. And that's what Democrats have to combat."