Amid a year of legal woes that added up to roughly half a billion dollars, Donald Trump has been leeching cash from an eyebrow-raising source: his campaign.
According to a CNN analysis of federal campaign finance data, Trump and associated political groups have funneled more than $28 million in campaign donations into his businesses since he first ran for office in 2015.
Other Republicans are reportedly also using their campaign budgets on Trump’s businesses in order to earn favor with the conservative populist. Republican candidates and conservative investors, including Bernie Moreno, former Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker, and Arizona Senate hopeful Kari Lake, have spent more on Trump’s businesses this year than at any point since 2016, reported CNN. Those expenses added up by way of “Mar-a-Lago fundraisers, stays at Trump’s hotels, and flights on the former president’s private jet,” the outlet reported.
Federal campaigns and PACs spent nearly $3.2 million on Trump properties in the first half of 2024 alone, though 80 percent of that came from Trump’s own campaign funds as well as political groups aligned with the Republican presidential nominee, reported CNN.
Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, told CNN that “committees are paying the fair market rate for all venues and services” offered by Trump businesses.
But campaign finance experts see the trend as yet another signal that the Republican Party has completely bent the knee to the former reality TV star.
“He’s clearly now in complete control of the Republican Party,” Daniel Weiner, director of the Brennan Center’s Elections and Government Program, told CNN. “Patronizing his businesses has become one of the accepted ways that candidates and public officials express their loyalty to the party’s leader.”
