Lara Trump addresses RNC fundraising troubles, Charlie Kirk criticism
Lara Trump is working double-time cementing her front-runner status to be the next co-chair of the RNC, including laying out her priorities to turbocharge the organization struggling to keep up with the DNCs massive fundraising advantage.
Former President Trump and the Republican National Committee raked in a substantial amount of cash in March, possibly assuaging concerns among some in the GOP over the campaign fundraising deficit they face against President Biden and the Democratic National Committee.
Fox News Digital confirmed Trump and the RNC brought in $65.6 million in March and ended the month with $93.1 million in cash on hand. The figures include money raised by a number of fundraising committees.
"President Donald J. Trump has again created a fundraising juggernaut among Republicans. While he has been the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party for less than a month, the RNC and Trump campaign are one unified operation and focused on victory," RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement.
"We’re raising funds and making strategic investments to get out the vote and protect the ballot. We are going to win BIG in just 31 weeks," Whatley predicted.
Donald Trump and Joe Biden (Getty Images)
Last month, as Trump clinched the 2024 GOP presidential nomination and became his party's presumptive nominee, the former president installed new leadership at the RNC, including Whatley and his daughter-in-law Lara Trump as a co-chair. Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita is simultaneously serving as the RNC chief of staff.
The new team quickly merged many operations with the Trump campaign, and launched a joint fundraising account titled the Trump 47 Committee which can draw checks up to $814,600.
"Our campaign, working together with the RNC, has been steadily ramping up our fundraising efforts," senior Trump campaign adviser Susie Wiles emphasized in a statement.
And she argued that "our March numbers are a testament to the overwhelming support for President Trump by voters all across the spectrum."
Former President Donald Trump (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
The March fundraising figure, which was first reported by Politico, is significantly more than the $62 million that Trump raised in March 2020 when he was running for re-election.
February FEC filings showed Biden's re-election campaign outraised the Trump campaign by a two-to-one margin and enjoyed a formidable cash-on-hand advantage at the end of that month.
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The Biden campaign reported raising $53 million in February, ending the month with $155 million on hand.
President Biden promotes his economic agenda in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Jan. 18, 2024. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
The president's re-election campaign has not yet announced its March fundraising haul, but its expected to be significant, after the campaign said it hauled in over $26 million last month at a fundraising gala with Biden and former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton at New York City's famed Radio City Music Hall, which was a new single event fundraising record.
Trump has been working to close the fundraising gap with Biden as the former president also struggles to pay his mounting legal bills, with just seven months to go until the November election.
Trump is set to hold a major fundraiser in Palm Beach, Florida on Saturday in a push to both close the fundraising gap and top the fundraising record set last week by Biden.
Whatley, in a Fox Business interview on Wednesday, predicted that the fundraiser would bring in over $40 million. Many of the top donors in the GOP - including some who sat on the sidelines during the Republican presidential primaries or backed rivals to Trump, are scheduled to attend.
Biden Campaign Rapid Response Director Ammar Moussa, in a statement to Fox News Digital, charged that "Donald Trump spent his first month as the presumptive Republican nominee holed up in a back room at Mar-a-Lago with billionaire special interests while he continues to struggle with the kind of grassroots donors who are powering our campaign."
"Trump is spending what money he does have on everything but reaching out to the voters – and it’s obvious he doesn’t have the infrastructure, the donor base, or the broad appeal to win this election."
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