In 2000, when Donald Trump was openly discussing the possibility of a White House campaign, he made a curious boast: “It’s very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it.”Sixteen years later, it’s not at all clear he was kidding.In June, Rachel noted on the show that Trump was spending a striking amount of his campaign resources on Trump corporate products and services. As it turns out, this only intensified as the campaign progressed: NBC News reports this morning that Trump’s political enterprise ended up spending $3 million on Trump’s other enterprises in the election cycle’s closing weeks.
The billionaire real-estate mogul donated $10 million to his campaign in the lead up to the election…. Much of that went back into his and his family’s pockets, however, as Trump frequently used his own businesses and properties to host campaign events, provide lodging, transportation and even meals at various points throughout the campaign.During the home stretch and the three weeks after Nov. 8, the campaign committee spent $2 million on his airline TAG Air to pay for the 737 he used to campaign across the country, and nearly $54,000 at various Trump restaurants. Other payments included more than $236,000 to his hotel in Las Vegas, where he stayed for two nights during the third presidential debate at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.Trump’s campaign also generated some revenue for his children. Trump’s son, Eric Trump’s wine manufacturing company, received $21,164 worth of payments.
Remember, Trump spent months insisting without evidence that Hillary Clinton was somehow “corrupt,” but it was the Republican’s operation that resembled an elaborate shell game.Speaking of allegations of corruption, Ron Klain, a veteran of the Clinton and Obama administrations, noted yesterday that Trump “gave his foundation’s largest donor a cabinet spot yesterday. Did you see blaring headlines? Imagine if [Hillary Clinton] had done that.”It’s a fair point. For months, the evidence of Clinton Foundation wrongdoing was effectively non-existent, but Team Trump argued that her donors were the beneficiaries of special access and favors. Meanwhile, Trump’s charitable foundation actually admitted to some legal transgressions, and the president-elect gave a plum assignment to its largest donor.Indeed, many of the Republicans who gave Trump the most money during his presidential bid — a campaign he falsely claimed to “self-fund” — are now being rewarded with cabinet jobs for which they don’t appear to be qualified.Maybe “Corrupt Hillary” was yet another example of Trump’s affinity for projection?
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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."