Campaign Action
The Trump campaign made a strong case on Tuesday afternoon that there’s no level Donald Trump could sink to that his campaign advisers would look at and think “we can’t try to fundraise off of that,” when it sent out an email trying to raise money off of the launch of an impeachment inquiry. But Wednesday has brought a new chance—will the campaign try to fundraise off of the partial transcript in which Trump pressured Ukraine’s president to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and to look for a fictional DNC server he believes to be in Ukraine?
Tuesday's fundraising email was a series of massive ego strokes to Trump supporters. “These Impeachment claims have nothing to do with the President – the Democrats thrive on silencing and intimidating his supporters, like YOU. They want to take YOUR VOTE away,” it blares. How? Oh, don’t even bother trying to figure it out.
“We won’t stand for this any longer, and neither should YOU. Which is why President Trump is launching the Official Impeachment Defense Task Force.” Who will be on this Official Impeachment Defense Task Force—top legal minds? Ethics experts? Of course not. It will be “only President Trump’s most LOYAL supporters.” In other words, the schmucks who give small-dollar contributions on the day the evidence of Trump’s behavior got so serious that Speaker Nancy Pelosi was dragged unwillingly into an impeachment inquiry.
Not only will members of the “Official Impeachment Defense Task Force” be “responsible for defending American Greatness,” their names will be put before Dear Leader, the email promised. This is obviously a lie—and not only because the deadline for responding in order to have one’s name shown to Trump changed from one email to the next, but because seriously, like Donald Trump is going to read something.
So anyway, that’s the Trump campaign’s response to Pelosi going, basically, “fine, you forced my hand, I can’t keep the lid on impeachment any longer.” Then Trump and his people sat down and decided that it would be no problem—exonerating, even—to release a “transcript” in which Trump explicitly asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to talk to Rudy Giuliani and to work with Attorney General William Barr to investigate Biden. And now we have to wonder how they’re going to spin that one for the email list. “The President’s ability to pressure foreign leaders into helping him win in 2020 is on the line—only YOU can defend it. Give now to be added to the Trump Protection Racket Defense Task Force today”?