‘Don't have enough’: Wealthy Trump allies balk at helping Donald pay legal bills
WASHINGTON — Some of former President Donald Trump’s fiercest allies in Congress may be multi-millionaires, but that doesn’t mean they’re opening up their wallets for the reality TV star turned contestant for America's most indicted.
“There’s only so much money,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) told Raw Story.
With creditors demanding a $454 million bond as his appeals slowly wind through the courts, Trump’s personal deficits have been the talk of the Capitol in recent days.
“Hopefully, I never get into that problem myself,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) told Raw Story while riding an elevator in the Capitol.
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“You’re not planning to cut him a check?” Raw Story asked.
“No. I don't have enough. Mine would be just a blip,” Tuberville — who’s been estimated to have a net worth of around $20 million — said. “But if I could help, I’d help, maybe.”
Most Republicans on Capitol Hill now parrot the former president’s rhetoric, dismissing Trump’s legal problems as “lawfare” — think lawsuits instead of bullets — by the left and presenting him as a modern day martyr.
“Listen, I’m sympathetic with the lawfare that is being waged against him. Actually quite sympathetic. This is the price he's paying for being involved in politics and running for the office again,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told Raw Story. “You could argue it's grossly unfair for him to have to pick up the full tab, so I personally don't have a problem with him explicitly asking for support.”
“Are you gonna donate?” Raw Story asked the former CEO worth an estimated $78 million.
“I've paid my price,” Johnson — who the Select Jan. 6 Committee implicated in helping carry out Wisconsin Republicans’ fake elector scheme in 2021 — said through a smile and chuckle.
While Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) is estimated to be worth more than $300 million — making him the wealthiest sitting U.S. senator — Trump shouldn’t come shaking his tin cup around the former chief executive of the Sunshine State.
“I’m optimistic he’ll figure it out. He's a pretty resourceful guy,” Scott (R-FL) told reporters just off the Senate floor Thursday.
“Would you donate?” Raw Story asked.
“He's a resourceful guy,” Scott answered with a laugh before heading into the chamber to vote.
Personal and political money troubles collide
Trump hasn’t directly asked his Senate allies to chip in to help him pay his civil penalties, fines and lawyers, which now top half a billion dollars — including interest, which Forbes reports is ticking up at $111,984 a day.
But the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee finds himself in a potentially cataclysmic financial mess that mixes both his personal fortune and the finances of his presidential campaign.
During the past two years, Trump’s political operation has spent upward of $80 million on legal fees — an astounding sum for anyone, let alone a presidential candidate. Every dollar Trump’s political machine spends on his four separate criminal cases and various civil court matters is a dollar not spent on attacking Democrats or boosting Republicans.
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Conversations in conservative circles have often focused on fundraising for Trump’s legal defense instead of beating President Joe Biden, which has some Republicans fearing the GOP will suffer up and down the ballot come November.
And while it’s still early in this general election and Trump’s poll numbers have looked decent, his fundraising has been anemic. Similarly, Biden’s poll numbers are lagging, even as his campaign coffers are overflowing.
Biden’s warchest is currently triple that of Trump's. The latest Federal Election Commission filings show Biden’s campaign and joint fundraising committee are sitting on $155 million compared to the $41.9 million cash on hand at Trump’s disposal. Such figures don't include money raised by committees the candidates don't directly control, such as supportive super PACs.
Trump may have had a good fundraising month in February, netting upward of $20 million in tandem with his joint fundraising committee, but he still found himself outraised by $3 million by former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) before she dropped out of the GOP presidential primary — withholding both her endorsement and her dollars.
“I think we just have to look at the hard math. Democrats are hitting on all cylinders in terms of fundraising, so we've already got a structural challenge where we're not raising as much as them,” Sen. Tillis of North Carolina said as he entered an elevator in the Capitol. “These races are big races. They cost a lot of money. You gotta mobilize voters, so I'm sure it's a concern for them, too.”
Besides begging for longshot loans, selling off assets and engaging in other creative monetary maneuvers, the former president is now leaning on the sale of $399 gold sneakers and a GoFundMe with an eye-popping $355 million goal.
It’s still unclear if Trump can wiggle out of the straight jacket ensnaring him through the newly announced merger between his fledgling social media company, Truth Social, and Digital World Acquisition Corporation. While the deal could eventually net Trump some $3 billion, his hands are currently tied by an agreement constraining him from selling his shares for the next six months — when the earliest of 2024 early votes are slated to be cast.
Instead of focusing on his reelection, Fox News hosts, such as Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin, have been pushing their massive audiences to donate to Trump’s legal fund.
They’re not the only ones thinking about Donald’s debt these days.
'Trump’s a movement'
Per his usual, Trump has his fierce defenders who say everything’s fine.
“Trump’s a movement. It’s not just the candidate. He’s a movement,” Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) — who served as Trump’s first Interior secretary until scandals ended his tenure in the executive branch — told Raw Story. “I'm not worried.”
“You gonna cut a check for his legal fund?” Raw Story inquired.
“I’ll support my president,” Zinke — who’s estimated to own assets topping $30 million — said.
Other rich Republicans also aren’t entirely slamming the door shut on providing future legal aid to Trump.
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“I am confident the [former] president will be able to figure out how to manage his campaign and finances to be successful,” Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) told Raw Story while walking through the Capitol.
“You have plans to donate to Trump?”
“We’ll see,” said Ricketts, who’s estimated his net worth around $50 million and comes from a family of billionaires who, for example, own the Chicago Cubs.
While he may not be as wealthy as his Senate counterparts, Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) has made millions through his gun store and firing range, which means he can’t give Trump in-kind donations because it’s illegal for the former president to even “receive” a firearm or ammunition while under felony indictments.
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Budd’s not looking to arm Trump for warfare though.
“Oh my goodness, it's complete lawfare,” Budd (R-NC) told Raw Story on his way to a Senate vote.
The freshman senator dismisses fears from some in the GOP that Trump’s legal fundraising is handicapping the party ahead of November.
“No. Completely separate,” Budd said.
Many in the GOP are banking on Biden foiling his own reelection bid. They expect the grassroots to be there for Trump — no matter the mind-numbing sums he’s scrambling to raise — just as they’ve been there for him in past fundraising appeals.
“I think that his support that he has at the grassroots will give him the money he needs,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told Raw Story. “And I think that there's a big anti-Biden movement. A downturn in money's not going to make a big difference.”
Other Republicans are indifferent or awkwardly distancing themselves from the troubled Trump — and the entire GOP through him, the party’s defendant-in-chief — brand.
“I haven’t thought about it at all,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told Raw Story.
“What about the RNC losing 60 staffers?”
“I didn't know about that either,” Collins said in reference to the “bloodbath” earlier this month when Trump ousted Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and installed his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as Republican National Committee — or RNC — co-chairwoman.
“Oh, yeah?” Raw Story asked. “Are you still a Republican?”
“It’s not uncommon when there's a new chair for there to be a major staff turnover,” Collins replied without answering our question.
RNC shakeup sends shivers through old Republican guard
Campaigns are more than dollars and cents though, and Trump’s ongoing personal shakeup of the RNC has unsettled many veteran Republicans.
Among country club Republicans and critics alike, this is just par for Trump’s political course.
“I don't think there's any norm or barrier that former President Trump won't be ready and willing to cross if it's in his personal, financial or egotistical interest,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) told Raw Story while walking to a vote on the Senate floor.
Romney is dismissed as a disloyal “Never Trump”-er by many in his own party. Besides McDaniel being his niece, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee is retiring at the end of this term.
Romney may be a critic, but he says he’s not given up on his party yet, even as the Republican Party has morphed into something unrecognizable from his time as the GOP standard-bearer.
Romney says he loves his party and fears Trump’s self-serving moves will be felt by conservatives for decades.
“The party has to exist beyond and after Donald Trump and I are gone, and so weakening the party, making it a personal appendage, is not a good thing,” Romney — who’s estimated to be worth more than $170 million, making him one of the top 10 wealthiest senators — said.
Even though he lost to then-President Barack Obama in 2012, Romney credits the RNC with helping turn out his supporters.
“It was a very helpful organization in turning out the vote, so it helped raise money for me and it turned out the vote. To win elections, it’s all about organization. Ground game still makes a difference,” Romney said. “Once I became the presumptive nominee, we worked hand in glove.”
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Romney did that without placing any of his children at the helm of the RNC.
“Having family members serve in the administration looked like nepotism. Didn't seem to bother him. Didn't seem to bother the voters who put him there,” Romney said.
Not all Democrats are dancing
On the other side of the proverbial aisle, many liberal talking heads are giddy watching Trump scramble for millions and millions of pennies. But Democrats in tight races this fall know they can’t count on Trump’s legal woes to win.
Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) is fighting for his political life in Montana. He’s raised upwards of $5 million four quarters in a row now, and he’s not letting up just because of Trump’s mounting legal bills.
“I don’t know that it makes a lot of difference, actually,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) told Raw Story.
Democrats also have other fears.
“Depends on whether he’s busy raising money for his legal fees instead of for his campaign, but it does concern me that it will be added financial pressure compromising him,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) told Raw Story on his way to meetings on the Senate side of the Capitol Thursday.
Schiff, who recently clinched a spot on the ballot in California’s U.S. Senate general election in November, is a Harvard educated lawyer who was the impeachment manager for Trump’s first impeachment.
“He’s always been all about the money,” Schiff said. “But now there will be even greater risk that he trades American interests for money.”
Facebook post by Derrick Evans. (Facebook screen grab)
Derrick Evans at the January 6 insurrection as shown in a court document.
Twitter reply by Michele Morrow screen-captured by Raw Story on March 6, 2024