From today’s The Bulwark by Bill Kristol and Andrew Egger (scroll down a bit): Breaking the Bank
We’ve all gotten more or less used to Donald Trump’s robbing his supporters blind with deceptive, aggressive fundraising tactics and using the millions he raises for self-serving purposes—it’s been going on for years now, after all, and the supporters don’t appear to mind. Is there a limit to their tolerance? We may get to find out. . . .
[T]he biggest hole in Team Trump’s balance sheets isn’t the primary. It’s the eye-watering amount of money his PACs have pumped into covering his legal bills: nearly $50 million in 2023 alone.
I don’t want to belabor this too much (or write too long a diary), because it’s all been discussed before. But it needs to discussed again, for several reasons as I see it:
- Trump now has huge fines to pay, around half a billion dollars, and if he wants to appeal those fines, he has to put that money in escrow. He doesn’t have it (and to the extent that he does, he doesn’t want to surrender it), and he’s been barred from getting loans from most banks.
- Trump is facing heavy criminal lawyers, and he can’t repeat his prior habit of stiffing his lawyers because criminal lawyers are making him pay up front, and he needs them if he wants to stay out of jail. He’s paid out over $50 million in legal fees so far.
- BUT . . . most of the money to pay those lawyers didn’t come from his own pockets, but from his followers. His followers are starting to show signs of donor fatigue, so . . .
- He’s trying to put his daughter-in-law in charge of the RNC so they will pay his legal bills.
The RNC isn’t entirely pleased with the notion:
It’s perfectly ordinary for a national party to function as an arm of its presidential nominee’s campaign in an election year. But many state-level members of the RNC are worried this level of direct control will permit Trump to tap into RNC funds for his legal bills as well.
“The RNC should not be raising the money to pay his debts,” one RNC member vented to The Bulwark this week. “I mean, so many of those debts have nothing to do with politics. They have more to do with him being a dirty old man.”
But the main point of all this is that Trump is vacuuming up funds for his legal problems that would otherwise go to paying for his re-election, as well as for GOP campaigns across the board.
Republicans went along or were dragged along with Trump because they feared what his MAGA hordes could do to them if they didn’t. They want to win (or steal) elections. Trump’s insatiable greed and need that other people pay his debts and bills is not only threatening his own return to office, it’s threatening their hold on power as well.
But while Trump’s base may not be able or willing to shell out the huge amount of cash he needs, they will also not tolerate any perceived disloyalty by Republicans either.
In short, Trump’s love of money will be the root, not only of his downfall, but of the GOP’s as well.
Pass the popcorn (and send Trump the bill).
(Just after posting, I saw this blog post by Mary Trump, who knows her uncle very well):
Knowing Donald as I do, here’s why I know this statement [by AG Letitia James that she will ask the judge to seize Trump’s assets] will make push him closer to the edge:
First, James implies that there’s a possibility Donald does not have enough cash to satisfy the judgment; that alone is enough to enrage him. Readers of The Good in Us know that Donald is obsessed with his net worth and he goes to great lengths to convince people he is enormously wealthy. It’s a significant part of his identity.
The urgency with which he clings to the the false idea that he is richer, more successful, and more talented than he is serves to hide the truth – not just from us, but from himself – that he is, quite simply, a loser.
[Update 12:30 PST] A NYT story just now posted also highlights Trump’s drain on state party finances and other resources: Inside the G.O.P.’s State Party Problem:
State Republican parties in roughly half of the most important battleground states are awash in various degrees of dysfunction, debt and disarray. . . .
As of now, Republicans will be unable to rely upon the R.N.C. to make up the difference financially.
The national party entered February with $8.7 million in the bank. Party officials have discussed tapping a line of credit to maintain operations until the nominating fight has concluded and more funds arrive.
The state party organizations have other problems besides lack of funds; party chairpersons under investigation or indictment, power struggles, misspending what funds they do have. The black hole that is Trump (on ideology and loyalty as well a money) just adds adds fuel to the fire.