Cash Crunch in MAGA-land

Created
Thu, 22/02/2024 - 04:00
Updated
Thu, 22/02/2024 - 04:00
There are some issues I have always assumed Trump would have more than enough money to finance his campaign. There’s a lot of cash floating around and the MAGA cult loves to give him money. Still, this doesn’t seem like good news: As Donald Trump’s legal troubles consume more and more of his time, they’re also consuming more of his donors’ money—and there’s a huge hole in the bucket. On Tuesday, Trump’s “Save America” leadership political action committee reported raising just $8,508 from donors in the entire month of January, while spending about $3.9 million, according to a new filing with the Federal Election Commission. Nearly $3 million of that overall spending total was used for one purpose: to pay lawyers. At the same time, the Trump campaign itself reported a net loss of more than $2.6 million for the month of January. It raised about $8.8 million while spending around $11.5 million, according to a separate filing made public on Tuesday. The filings reveal that Trump is continuing to burn through his donors’ funds as he struggles to feed two massive cash drains—astronomical legal bills stemming from numerous civil cases and four criminal indictments, plus the costs of a national presidential campaign. After the Trump filings were released on Tuesday evening, his sole primary challenger, Nikki Haley, flashed a sign of strength, with her campaign reporting $11.5 million in receipts last month. It is the first-ever fundraising period where Haley’s campaign outraised Trump. Despite reporting almost no donations in January, the Save America PAC—a group Trump launched days after…