Has He Spent?

On September 22, 2022, I called out President Trump for sitting on his pile of $99 million. He has spent nothing expect on legal fees and travel. He has not spent a bit of money on any of his candidates from Blake Masters to JD Vance to Herschel Walker.

The very next day, Trump’s team announced it would start spending the money. “Trump to unleash millions in the midterms in possible prelude to 2024,” read the Politico headline.

Today is October 18, 2022. To my knowledge and to the knowledge of anyone I have talked to, the money has still not been spent.

Small dollar Republican donors gave Trump money, trusting him to spend it more wisely than Mitch McConnell.

Now, 3 weeks before the election, McConnell is spending billions of dollars to get a Senate majority even as some of Trump’s angriest fans scream that McConnell would prefer to be minority leader. Actually, the GOP might take the Senate because McConnell, not Trump, has spent money to get the GOP across the finish line.

So the question now, three weeks before the election with close races in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia, and Arizona, is will Donald Trump actually spend the money meaningfully to get his endorsed candidates elected?

Or was all the theater on September 23rd just that — theater designed to distract.

Trump wants McConnell out. Trump is ensuring McConnell stays entrenched and also is burning bridges with small dollar donors who have been taken advantage of if the money is not meaningfully spent in significant ways.