Companies shelled out $500M to 'avoid' Trump's 'wrath' after election: report

President Donald Trump never stopped raising money after he won the 2024 election, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars check by check during top-drawer Mar-a-Lago dinners with health care industry executives, according to new reporting in The Wall Street Journal.

Reporters Josh Dawsey and Anna Wilde Mathews wrote that Trump held more than 50 dinner meetings at his Florida club where he wined and dined with heads of pharmaceutical companies, health insurance agencies, and hospital leaders who all wrote the largest checks.

They included the head of drug-maker Pfizer, pharmacy-benefit managers including CVS Health and UnitedHealth Group, and big insurers like CignaGroup, which all had a Mar-a-Lago dinner after their companies each ponied up at least $1 million.

"In his gold-covered, chandeliered dining room just off the lobby at his Mar-a-Lago club, Trump discovered one of the most lucrative moneymaking ventures of his career, sometimes serving chopped steak, showing off his iPad playlist and listening to executives looking to bend his ear and complain about others," they wrote.

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“Everybody who is anybody went down to Florida to meet Trump," the reporters quoted Kathryn Wylde, the leader of the Partnership for New York City. “It was a proactive effort to not be a target,” she said.

The two months of private fundraising dinners "shattered records for presidential transitions," according to the report, with Trump telling associates "he raised about $500 million" this way.

The reporters spoke with "11 people familiar with the activities, highlighting the extent to which U.S. corporations have showered Trump with money hoping to avoid his public wrath and shape his thinking on esoteric issues where he has shown less policy interest."

Trump has said he'll use the money for a "rainy-day fund," and reportedly split the cash among his "inaugural committee and various other accounts, including a large political-action committee. "

Read The Wall Street Journal story here.