Trump's PAC Is Just About Broke

Ryan Bort/Rolling Stone

Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a political rally while campaigning for the GOP nomination in the 2024 election at Erie Insurance Arena on July 29, 2023, in Erie, Pennsylvania. (photo: Jeff Swensen/AFP)

Save America has spent over $20 million on legal fees this year as the former president battles a string of criminal indictments

Save America PAC is out of money. Donald Trump’s biggest fundraising arm outside his campaign has just over $3.6 million on hand after burning through millions on legal fees for the former president and his allies. The revelation comes through Federal Election Commission filings released on Monday.

Save America money trouble isn’t surprising. The Washington Post reported over the weekend that the PAC would report it spent $40 million this year on legal fees amid Trump’s two criminal indictments, with more charges likely headed down the pike. On Monday, the New York Times added that Save America requested a $60 million refund of money it had ferried to another group supporting Trump’s candidacy, a sign that the legal fees are plunging the PAC into dire financial straits.

The filings on Monday only showed about $20 million in legal expenditures, about half of what had been reported, but it’s still plenty compared to the $16 million the PAC spent on fees across 2021 and 2022 combined. The most jarring comparison, however, is the $105 million Save America had in the bank at the start of last year, compared to the $3.6 million it has on hand at the moment. Yikes.

Trump is still a fundraising powerhouse. Save America and the former president’s campaign combined to bring in nearly $54 million in the first half of the year, far more than any of his competitors. They reported spending $57 million, though, which isn’t a great sign. Trump may figure he can keep raising money as he keeps getting indicted, using new criminal charges to spur donations from supporters he’s convinced he’s being persecuted, but as FEC whiz Rob Pyers points out on Twitter, there may be some diminishing returns here.

Trump’s PAC may be in financial trouble, but his campaign is thriving. A New York Times/Siena College poll released Monday found he’s leading the floundering Ron DeSantis by a whopping 37 percentage points. Trump will need to make it through more than just the Republican field if he wants to get back into the White House and use the power of the presidency to make his legal troubles go away, and another New York Times/Siena College poll released Tuesday shows Trump just about even with President Biden. However, the poll was conducted before Trump called Biden a “dumb son of a bitch” at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday.

https://www.rsn.org/001/trumps-pac-is-just-about-broke.html