Trump Brags He Has Way More Campaign Money Left Than Harris
It’s been a day of potential reconciliation after a heated presidential election campaign. At least on the surface.
First, details emerged that Donald Trump will have lunch with President Joe Biden this Wednesday at 11 a.m., according to a statement from the White House press secretary after Trump had said that they would be talking “soon.” While meetings after elections are traditional, the particular volatility of the most recent campaign and the history between the two makes the news striking.
Trump went one step further, posting a trial balloon on his Truth Social site that suggested the Republican Party should pay Democratic candidate Kamala Harris’ campaign debts, following the campaign ending with nearly $20 million in debt despite its hefty fundraising totals.
That shift in tone from Democrats is being noticed. CNN commentator and radio host Charlamagne Tha God said on Friday, “They’re not calling him a threat to democracy, they’re not calling [Trump] a fascist. It just makes you wonder how much of it did they really believe?”
Harris raised a huge amount of money despite her short time in the campaign, as well as picking up Biden’s own war chest, setting her up with more than $1 billion raised — and spent — on this campaign. Reports have surfaced indicating vendors are nervous about repayment.
Fundraiser and Kamala Harris surrogate Lindy Li characterized it earlier Saturday as a “$1 billion disaster” in a Fox News interview.
“They’re $20 million or $18 million in debt. It’s incredible, and I raised millions of that. I have friends that I have to be accountable to and explain what happened because I told them it was a margin-of-error race,” Li said.
On his Truth Social account, Trump said the GOP should use its surplus war chest to help.
“I am very surprised that the Democrats, who fought a hard and valiant fight in the 2020 Presidential Election, raising a record amount of money, didn’t have lots of $’s left over,” Trump wrote. “Now they are being squeezed by vendors and others. Whatever we can do to help them during this difficult period, I would strongly recommend we, as a Party and for the sake of desperately needed UNITY, do.
“We have a lot of money left over in that our biggest asset in the campaign was ‘Earned Media,’ and that doesn’t cost very much,” Trump wryly noted, pointing to a key source of his success in talk show appearances and getting coverage of his events.
