(Washington) Donald Trump raised more than $50 million on Saturday during a gigantic fundraising evening in Florida, a new crucial episode in the war on big donations which pits the Republican and Joe Biden in the race for the House. White.
In American electoral life, money, far from being a taboo, is a source of pride for the side that amasses the most. It is also an essential windfall: 2024 promises to be the most expensive electoral cycle in the country’s history.
The two candidates have been engaged in this war for millions for months, regularly sharing laudatory press releases on the state of their finances.
This competition of muscles accelerated with the holding at the end of March of a large reception in New York, during which Democratic President Joe Biden raised 25 million dollars, “a record” according to his campaign team.
But on Saturday, that of his tempestuous rival Donald Trump announced a figure twice as high: more than $50.5 million, collected during the fundraising evening in Palm Beach, not far from Mar-a-Lago, the luxurious residence of the Republican candidate.
An amount that makes the amount collected by Joe Biden in New York “desperate”, in comparison, joked Donald Trump’s campaign team.
“The evening was incredible before it even started, because people wanted to contribute to a cause, to make America great again. And that’s what happened,” the former Republican president said Saturday.
The event was organized by billionaire John Paulson, one of the rare financiers to have profited from the 2008-2009 financial crisis thanks to his bets on the collapse of the real estate market. It made it possible, according to him, “to raise the highest amount in one go in the history” of politics.
PHOTO SETH WENIG, ASSOCIATED PRESS
John Paulson and Donald Trump and November 2019
$814,600
Guests included businessman Robert Bigelow, who made his fortune in the hotel business before running an aerospace research company, and John Catsimatidis, owner of a major grocery store chain.
Both men are known to be major donors to the Republican Party.
Some former rivals of Donald Trump in the Republican primaries were also on the list: Tim Scott, Vivek Ramaswamy, Doug Burgum… These men have since completely embraced the septuagenarian’s candidacy and hope to find a place in a hypothetical Trump 2.0 administration.
According to the Washington PostDonald Trump’s seat at the table was billed… $814,600.
These crazy sums are used to finance candidates’ travel, to pay their teams, to commission surveys or, and perhaps above all, to pay for television advertisements.
Joe Biden, who likes to portray himself as a hero of the middle class, was quick to criticize the event organized by his Republican opponent in a post on social networks on Saturday.
“Donald Trump is organizing a fundraiser with a group of billionaires from the world of finance, who want to slash Social Security and Medicare while offering themselves tax cuts,” he said. he accuses.
The Democrat currently has better campaign coffers than Donald Trump, criminally charged four times, who spends part of the money collected from his supporters on legal fees.
His team relishes this financial advantage, even calling out “broke Don” in a recent email about the billionaire, himself a big fan of cruel nicknames.
Donald Trump compares himself to a “modern-day Mandela”
Republican Donald Trump, candidate for the American presidential election in November and surrounded by legal troubles, compared himself on Saturday to a “modern-day Mandela”, provoking strong criticism from the Biden camp.
Over the past year, the former president has been indicted in four criminal cases, all of which put him at risk of prison.
Among other things, he is accused of having orchestrated questionable payments to a pornographic film star – a case which will be judged from April 15.
Donald Trump regularly attacks the judge who will preside over this trial via inflammatory publications on social networks. Magistrate Juan Merchan, in return, imposed restrictions on his speech.
On Saturday, the Republican billionaire mentioned these speech bans in a very long publication on his Truth Social network, accusing the judge of “violating the law and the Constitution, at the same time”.
A few days earlier, Donald Trump had already republished a fake audience sketch where he is seen sitting… right next to Jesus Christ.