Former President Donald Trump has at least one group of supporters he doesn’t have to worry about losing, even after being found guilty in his New York hush money trial: Republican megadonors.
“I haven’t heard anyone give a damn,” New York businessman and Republican donor Andy Sabin said when asked if major GOP donors he knows care about the verdict in Trump’s trial .
Many of the party’s wealthiest donors tell CNBC that they intend to stay by Trump’s side even though he was found guilty of all 34 felonies in New York.
The donor sentiment represents a shift for some Republican megadonors who initially sought an alternative to Trump during the party’s presidential primaries, driven by the belief that the former president’s legal troubles would fatally weaken his campaign to replace President Joe Biden.
Well: “It doesn’t matter at all,” a longtime Republican fundraiser told CNBC. “Maybe a year ago [the trials mattered]. Well, none.
This person, along with several others in this story, were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations with Trump and donors.
Major donors’ solidarity with Trump is also reflected in Trump’s fundraising figures. Trump’s trial on charges of falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to a porn star began April 15. This month, Trump’s campaign committee raised $9.4 million.
Trump’s fundraising website was briefly down after Thursday’s verdict, prompting his advisers to direct potential donors to another site.
Trump and the RNC announced they had collectively raised over $76 million in April. Biden’s team said its political operation, which includes the Democratic National Committee, raised $51 million during the same period.
Trump also recently raised tens of millions of dollars at private events hosted by major Republican donors.
Texas businessman and former Trump administration official Ray Washburne co-hosted a Dallas event for Trump on May 22.
Washburne told CNBC the event raised $10 million for the Trump 47 Committee, which raises money for the Trump campaign, Trump’s Save America political action committee, the Republican National Committee and dozens of state parties.
He called Trump’s trial in New York “frivolous” and “absurd,” adding: “Trump will have no problem raising money.”
Omeed Malik, the president of 1789 Capital and a Trump stalwart, told CNBC he believes the guilty verdict “will completely backfire, just like the charges that actually spurred it.” [Trump’s] Support.”
Malik co-hosted a Trump fundraiser in New York on May 14 that raised over $10 million.
A guilty verdict is “not an issue,” said David Tamasi, a Republican fundraiser and managing director of the lobbying firm Chartwell Strategy Group.
“I think if someone had told you after January 6 that the country would be where it is today, it would have been hard to imagine,” Tamasi said. He cited problems he had with Biden’s handling of the U.S.-Mexico border and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
Venture capitalist David Sacks, who co-hosted an event for Trump in June, posted a message of support for the former president after the verdict was read on X. “Trump has many supporters in Silicon Valley; many are simply afraid to admit it. But with every act of courage like this, the dam begins to break,” Sacks said.
Tamasi raised money for Trump’s 2020 campaign and for former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s failed primary campaign against Trump last year.
Now, Tamasi says, he plans to help Trump again, probably by fundraising for him.
A Republican business consultant recalled to CNBC how he recently had conversations with nearly a dozen lobbyists who had privately attacked Trump after Jan. 6 and in the lead-up to his New York trial.
Despite the guilty verdict, they will all come back to raise money for Trump.
But perhaps the most telling sign of how GOP megadonors view Trump’s legal troubles is the case of Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman.
In 2021, after the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by hundreds of Trump supporters, Schwarzman called the insurrection “horrifying” and said he was “shocked and appalled by this mob’s attempt to undermine our Constitution.” .
In 2022, the billionaire and longtime GOP donor announced that it was “time for the Republican Party to turn to a new generation of leaders,” an apparent swipe at the party’s former chairman, Trump. Schwarzman also said he plans to support one of these “new” leaders in the 2024 presidential primary.
But two years later, Schwarzman has changed his tune. After failing to endorse any of the Republican primary candidates, Schwarzman announced that he would support Trump’s run for the White House. “I plan to vote for change and support Donald Trump for president,” Schwarzman told Axios in a statement released on May 24.
The same day, defense attorneys in Trump’s New York criminal trial questioned Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, who testified that Trump directed him to spend $130,000 to buy a porn star’s silence before the 2016 election.
A spokeswoman for Schwarzman did not respond to a request for comment.
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2024-05-31 01:15:24
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