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President Donald Trump might be hung up in the courtroom for the next few weeks, but that doesn’t seem to be hurting his ability to fundraise for the 2024 presidential election season.
“Every day that President Trump has been in court, we’ve been getting, he’s been getting, a million dollars or more in small-dollar donations that are coming in online,” Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley stated on Fox News.
Friday marked the president’s eighth day in Manhattan criminal court, where he is sitting through a so-called “hush money” trial brought forward by District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
If the aim of the ongoing lawfare against President Trump has been to drain his campaign finances or slow down his political momentum on the 2024 trail, it hasn’t worked. Based on Chairman Whatley’s statement, Trump’s grassroots support is more powerful than ever, and the trial is driving it forward with dizzying speed.
The court proceedings in the trial have looked surprisingly positive for President Trump this week, as media publisher David Pecker (National Enquirer) has taken the stand, giving his perspective on a variety of scrambled topics, ranging from his alleged intent to “catch and kill” negative stories about Trump in 2016 to his conversations with Trump’s then-attorney Michael Cohen.
Criminal defense attorney Mark Eiglarsh told Fox News this week that the prosecution’s biggest problem in this case would be trying to convince a jury “what the crime is that President Trump is accused of.”
The ups and downs of the case haven’t phased Trump’s supportive base of voters. On Thursday morning, in true Trump fashion, he swung by an impressively large cadre of New York union workers while on his way to court. They cheered and chanted “USA” and “WE LOVE TRUMP” while he greeted them, shook hands, and paused to stop and speak with reporters.
Trump’s tether to New York for the criminal trial is clearly helping his campaign, not hurting it, and the RNC has the fundraising receipts to prove it.