Owing hundreds of millions of dollars in legal judgments, the former president’s money troubles have extended to his campaign, where he is being outraised by his rival and diverting funds to his lawyer bills.
Buddy, can you spare a half billion dollars?
Former President Donald Trump – who bragged during his 2016 campaign that he was so rich, he wouldn’t need donor dollars to run for office – is facing a very expensive year. Not only is he on the hook for more than $540 million in legal judgments against him (including estimated interest), but he’s going to need more money to fund what is expected to be the most expensive presidential campaign in history.
And he hasn’t even formally sewn up the nomination yet, meaning he still has to spend resources swatting away GOP primary foe Nikki Haley before he focuses solely on beating President Joe Biden.
The Biden-Kamala Harris campaign reported raising $42 million in January, leaving the campaign (and its affiliated committees) with $130 million cash on hand – the highest amount ever amassed by any Democratic candidate at this point in the campaign, the Biden-Harris campaign said.
Trump’s campaign, meanwhile, is gushing money as it fends off the primary challenge from Haley, a former South Carolina governor who also served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations. Trump raised $8.8 million in January and spent more than $11 million.
That doesn’t include money raised by Trump-associated political action committees or the Republican National Committee. But much of the money raised by committees such as the Save America PAC (which had about $6 million in cash at the end of January) have gone to pay Trump’s mounting legal bills.
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Until he secures the nomination, Trump isn’t allowed to raise money in tandem with the RNC. And even there, the GOP national committee lags behind its counterpart: The Democratic National Committee had $24 million on hand at the end of January, while the RNC reported having $8.7 million on hand.
The Biden-Democratic haul was “an indisputable show of strength to start the election year,” campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement. “While Team Biden-Harris continues to build on its fundraising machine, Republicans are divided – either spending money fighting Donald Trump, or spending money in support of Donald Trump’s extreme and losing agenda. Either way, judging from their weak fundraising, they’re already paying the political price.”
At a town hall sponsored by Fox News, Trump groused about Haley’s fundraising, which at $11 million eclipsed that of the man almost certain to win his party’s nomination.
“The Democrats are giving her money and she’s playing into the game,” he said at a Fox News-hosted town hall in Greenville, South Carolina.
Money isn’t a guarantee: Trump was outraised in 2016 and won the presidency anyway. And the former president has shown a remarkable ability to get his fervent fans to donate to his committees or to buy his eponymous goods. Last weekend, Trump launched a line of gold high-top sneakers with a raised “T” on the side, with a $399 price tag. They sold out within hours.
Still, it’s not clear Trump has the cash to pay his mounting bills. His portion of the judgment in the New York fraud case against him – in which Trump was found to have grossly exaggerated the value of his properties and cash holdings – was $354 million. New York Attorney General Letitia James estimated that interest will add $100 million to the tally.
That’s on top of the $83.3 million Trump was ordered to pay writer E. Jean Carroll in a defamation lawsuit, which itself was a second penalty after Trump was ordered to pay $5 million in an earlier defamation lawsuit against Carroll.
Trump is worth about $2.6 billion, Forbes magazine estimated this month. The former president said during a deposition last year that he had “substantially in excess” of $400 million in cash – not enough to pay all of the judgments against him, let alone his attorneys’ fees.
James said she’s prepared to go after Trump’s prized real estate to make sure New York gets paid.
“If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets,” James said on ABC, specifically mentioning Trump’s property at 40 Wall Street.
For Trump, that would mean yet another day in court.
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-02-21/trumps-growing-money-troubles-extend-to-his-campaign
