Trump needs money!

When Donald Trump has taken to hawking bibles for Easter, you know he’s hard up for money.

That’s despite his on-paper windfall of more than $4 billion (and climbing) when his Truth Social network debuted on the NASDAQ stock exchange in what will probably end up being a failed “meme” stock, especially if Trump loses the 2024 election.

But both Trump money-making schemes came at a crucial time for him. Facing a March deadline to post almost half a billion dollars’ bond while he appeals the judgement against him in New York’s civil case for his fraudulent business practices, he is desperate to keep himself out of prison and in the ranks of U.S.’s richest people. Just when it appeared that Trump would have to face consequences for his inability to get any reputable financial firm to put up the bond, a New York appeals court gave him a brief reprieve. It extended the deadline for the bond, while cutting its amount to $175 million. Once again, the justice system bailed out Trump.

Because Trump’s legal dramas are the inevitable backdrop of his campaign, the real impact they are having on his prospects isn’t always clear. But behind the headlines, they are taking their toll.

Consider these developments:

Last year, the Republican National Committee (RNC)had its worst fundraising year, adjusted for inflation, since 1993.
The Biden campaign is currently leading the Trump campaign in money raised and “cash on hand” byalmost 50 percent ($155 million to $109 million), with more than twice the money in the bank as the Republicans have.
Trump continues to bleed millions in legal bills.
The recent merger between the Trump campaign and the RNC—in which Trump’s daughter-in-law became the RNC co-chair—comes with strings attached. Trump’s political action committee, Save America PAC, which is paying his legal bills, will be in line to pocket fundraising dollars beforeany money goes to the RNC or to state-level Republican parties.
Key swing-state GOPs are embroiled in faction fights between Trumpites and less-MAGAfiedpoliticians (e.g., Michigan); are fending off criminal charges of their own for their involvement in Trump’s 2020 fake elector scheme (e.g. Nevada, Michigan, Georgia); or scandals that have forced party leaders to resign (e.g., Arizona, Florida).
Leading Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives have resigned in unprecedented numbers, leading to speculation that the GOP could lose its slim majority in the House before the 2024 elections.

These are all signs of a party under stress, if not in disarray. Yet there are two big groups who have an interest in downplaying these facts: one, obviously, is the Republican Party itself. It doesn’t want its supporters to think it’s a dumpster fire when it’s trying to organize them to win a presidential election. And second, the “popular front” around Biden and the Democrats that sees a Trump victory as synonymous with the end of democracy and the constitutional order. It’s hard to argue that your opposition is a fascist juggernaut when it can’t even conduct its most basic functions.

Con artist that he is, Trump is betting on the rubes—either those who think he’s read the bible or day traders who will bid up his worthless stock—to pay his legal bills and to finance his presidential run. Has Trump and the GOP turned to these “unconventional” means because the conventional ones—collecting money from corporations and the rich—are closed off to them? Is big business really abandoning its presumed A-Team in Washington? Don’t count on it.

Remember all the fanfare about major U.S. corporations swearing off contributions to GOP politicians who supported the January 6, 2021 riot and its attendant “Big Lie” of the “rigged” and “stolen” 2020 presidential election? Even though major business organizations issued statements condemning January 6 and worked with major media and non-governmental organizations to assure a “peaceful transition” from Trump to Biden, it was always a farrago to trust big business to champion democracy. As always with U.S. politics, following the money is the best way to understand what happened.

Sure enough, within a few months of January 6, most major corporations had started giving donations to GOP politicians again. The liberal investigative journalists Rebecca Crosby and Judd Legum showed that at least 50 major corporations, including Microsoft, Walmart, AT&T and General Motors, have given a total of $23 million to GOP election deniers since 2021.

The precedent set in 2016 and 2020, when most business money went to the Democratic presidential candidates, will likely repeat in 2024. For big business, Trump’s chaotic style, his opposition to free trade and immigration, and his failure to stem the pandemic were more than enough reasons to prefer Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020. However, once Trump was in office and—rhetoric and Tweets aside—operated as a traditional conservative on taxation, deregulation and pro-business judges, business was more than happy to go along. So, no one should think that business is seriously considering abandoning the GOP.

In the narrower world of conservative Republican billionaires, rapprochement with Trump is already underway. Wall Street hedge funder John Paulson is planning an April fundraiser with many of these plutocrats. It aims to raise $33 million in one go—enough to break the record $26 million haul that the Democrats made March 28 in its New York fundraiser involving three of the four living Democratic Party presidents.

It’s important to note that most of these ideological plutocrats made their money in finance, tech, retail and casinos. They are using their personal fortunes to position themselves as players in the event of a Trump victory in November. For them, the “rule of law,” “the Constitution”and other factors that principled conservatives are supposed to be concerned with doesn’t really motivate them when they might have to pay higher taxes on their fortunes. Biden’s pledge to raise the corporate tax to 25 percent (a lower rate than he pledged in 2020) and to add a surcharge on billionaires has these billionaires preparing to back Trump again.

“The Biden tax increase is really viewed with hostility by the people on Wall Street I talk to, even some of the more moderate Republicans on Wall Street who have typically not been conservative in their orientation,” Stephen Moore, an outside economic adviser to Trump, told the Washington Post. “The higher rate on capital gains, the higher corporate rate — all that stuff is anathema to these people.”

This coterie of billionaires is rich enough to be able help Trump make headway on his deficit to Biden. But Trump could still end up with a substantial deficit to Biden. Recall that in 2020, the Biden campaign raised and spent more than $1.6 billion, compared to Trump’s $1 billion. These staggering amounts of money continue to keep the presidential sweepstakes a contest between different sets of the wealthy and corporate elites. But they amount—together—to about what Trump made in a day with his pump-and-dump stock deal. And they are half of the$8.5 billion grant to an Intel Corp. chip plant that Biden announced in a recent campaign trip to Arizona.

In other words, American elections are too expensive for everyday people to have much say, but they are bargains for corporations and the rich who are seeking favors from government. Corporate America can thrive with either party in the White House. These considerations may not be as stirring as a “fight for the soul of the nation,” or “defending democracy,” but they are much closer to what the bipartisan establishment’s paymasters think is at stake in November.