It’s been a few weeks since The Washington Post first reported on Donald Trump huddling with oil industry executives and pitching a “deal”: They should raise $1 billion to return him to the White House, the Republican said, and if they did, he’d reward them by eliminating environmental safeguards and approving new tax breaks.
The transaction that Trump described, the newspaper added, “stunned several of the executives in the room.” It also generated interest from congressional Democrats, who’ve launched an official investigation.
But as brazen as this was, those representing Big Oil aren’t the only ones who’ve heard such pitches from the presumptive GOP nominee.
The Post published a related report yesterday, highlighting remarks Trump recently made to prominent donors, who heard the former president make some outrageous boasts. He claimed, for example, that a businessman offered a $1 million contribution and asked to have lunch with the candidate. “You’ve got to make it $25 million,” Trump claimed to have responded.
In the same remarks, another contributor, who generally gives $2 million to $3 million to Republicans, was told that Trump would be unhappy unless he donated $25 million or $50 million.
All the while, the Post’s report explained, the former president emphasized tax breaks that he approved while in office, which are poised to expire. Trump sometimes makes requests higher than his team expects to receive, sometimes surprising his own advisers because he is asking for so much money. By frequently tying the fundraising requests within seconds of promises of tax cuts, oil project infrastructure approvals and other favorable policies and asking for sums more than his campaign and the GOP can legally accept from an individual, Trump is also testing the boundaries of federal campaign finance laws, according to legal experts.
The appeals are lacking in subtlety: If the reporting is accurate, Trump, desperate for donations, is telling his wealthy supporters that if they put money in his campaign coffers, he’ll put money in their pockets. It’s easy to forget, but eight years ago, there were plenty of voters who gravitated to Trump because they admired his alleged wealth. If he was already rich, the argument went, then the Republican wouldn’t have to spend his time sucking up to elite donors, special interests, and corporate lobbyists. Eight years later, I have some bad news for those who genuinely believed this.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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