Some observers are questioning claims of the amounts raised this weekend around a pro-Trump fundraising event. Trump propagated a claim of some $50 million in fundraising, which, if true, would be a monumental — for now — surge, but the former president has a detailed record of allegedly abject lies in financial contexts.
Alleged lies in this area were a key driver of what became nearly half a billion dollars in penalties on the former president in a civil case brought by New York state Attorney General Letitia James on claims of business fraud. The (successfully) alleged fraud pattern involved a pattern of misrepresenting the values of various assets, a pattern in which Trump was ensnared. So, should anybody take seriously claims from Trump of $50 million in fundraising?
“There’s no reason for any media org to report Trump’s fundraising totals from last night without an itemization of every contribution,” Simon Rosenberg, a political operative/commentator, said Sunday online. “He’s already perpetuated massive financial fraud schemes and has been lying about the 2020 election for years.”
Cheri Jacobus, someone with a similar platform in politics, also raised questions. Specifically, she shared the following quote alongside a link to coverage of Trump’s fundraising: “If someone says it’s raining, and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out the fucking window and find out which is true.”
Claire McCaskill, a former Democratic Senator, was even more forthright. “Bet you a dollar that Trump didn’t raise 50 million at his fundraiser,” she posited.
No matter, there’s an apparent, key difference between fundraising at the Biden campaign and similar efforts at the Trump campaign. While both may post big numbers that are probably going to stay large as this year’s elections approach, the data suggests that Biden’s campaign is faring much better among smaller-dollar, everyday donors, creating a refilling well of campaign support. In terms of its fundraising, the Biden campaign soared tens of millions of dollars past Trump in March, propelled in part by a surge of millions of dollars seemingly in largely small-dollar giving around his “State of the Union” address to Congress.
