President Donald Trump and the Republican Party continue to worry about their future during the midterm elections, and yet despite this the president continues to withhold money from GOP candidates — prompting one conservative strategist to offer a scathing rebuke.
“When asked how he’s feeling about his party’s prospects come November, [Doulgas] Heye responded Monday, ‘Look, they’re bleak, and they’re bleak because history tells us that this is what happens in midterm elections. They’re also bleak because of where the president’s numbers are,'” reported Mediaite’s Kathryn Wilkens regarding his appearance on The Source with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.
Heye also told Collins, “Republicans know that their back is against the wall. The Trump campaign has not been spending money to help Republican candidates like it needs to.”
When Collins asked why Trump is doing this, Heye replied that “Donald wants to spend money on himself. He doesn’t want to give things away. He wants Republicans to earn it, so we still have The Apprentice playing out here, to some extent… The other issue is then what Donald Trump talks about, whether he’s off topic or not, or when he’s on topic, he tells voters, ‘We’ve never been hotter or richer,’ and voters don’t feel hot or rich right now.”
The conservative outlet the Washington Examiner has also reported on Trump hoarding campaign donations, writing earlier this month on a Republican State Leadership Committee memo that “Democrats’ four largest groups involved in state legislative elections will outspend the RSLC’s commitment of more than $50 million by almost three-to-one. Republicans have a huge fundraising lead nationally, with the likes of MAGA Inc., the Trump-aligned super PAC, holding a $400 million war chest. But all the signs are that it will be spent on congressional and gubernatorial races, rather than less glamorous down-ballot fights. This year four major Democratic organizations have publicly announced significant spending plans: the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee at $50 million, Forward Majority at $30 million, LCV Victory Fund at more than $50 million, and the National Democratic Redistricting Committee at $4 million. In all, they are committed to spending more than $134 million.”
They added, “This flood of national liberal dollars into state legislative races should concern everyone who does not want to see a permanent Democratic House majority.”
John Stoehr, editor and publisher of the Editorial Board, has a darker theory as to why Trump is not dispensing the money. Describing a report in The Washington Post about Trump’s behavior in an AlterNet editorial, Stoehr said of the coverage that “they are amazing sentences, because they exist in a mainstream news outlet owned by a billionaire who profits from his patronage of the White House, but also because they never quite land on the truth in plain sight, which is that Donald Trump is stealing the money.”