Donald Trump Wants Me to Join His Inner Circle

All I need to do to make this happen is to come up with some cash.

(Composite / Photos: GettyImages / Shutterstock)

THE OTHER DAY, DONALD TRUMP’S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN sent me an urgent email. It said the president needed my help. What I needed to do was join something called “THE PRESIDENT’S TRUST.” The email spelled it all out:

This year, President Trump learned who his TRUE allies are.

He also learned who would gladly stab him in the back during the most despicable witch hunts that will forever go down as a stain on our country’s history.

The email said that, given all this, it was “critical that the President’s most TRUSTED ALLIES like YOU step up to defend him.” This could be accomplished by becoming a Founding Member of THE PRESIDENT’S TRUST, which professes “to peacefully defend our movement from the never-ending witch hunts.”

Alas, the email noted ruefully, “the last time we checked the enrollment roster, we didn’t see you had accepted your invitation yet.” And so Team Trump sent the invite again:

The email explained that while enrollment for being a Founding Member had closed, “President Trump decided at the beginning of the new quarter to re-open enrollment ONLY for his most trusted DONORS like YOU.”

The membership appeal did not explain how I managed to become one of Trump’s most trusted donors without ever giving him a dime. But it did include a note to me from Trump, which went into some detail as to why I needed to give money now. It began:

Dear Bill,

All the way back in April of this year, I told you that the witch hunts had taken their darkest turn yet.

I think I’ve now said that every single month since then.

But sadly, it’s the truth.

With every passing month, Crooked Joe and the Democrats have turned up the heat in their vicious witch hunts against me and our movement.

Trump added that because he was “absolutely DOMINATING Crooked Joe nationally and in the most important battleground states, we can expect the Democrats to slam on the gas like never before.”

(Slam on the gas?)

Trump said he needed to know whether “my most trusted supporters” were going to “have my back.” He said he would “fully understand” if I could not contribute “because times are tough for you in Biden’s America.” Otherwise, I really should “join this inner circle of trusted patriots at this pivotal moment in the 2024 election.”

This was the image that ran with Trump’s note:

The email linked to a donation page through which I could and presumably still can become a Founding Member by giving as little as $24 or as much as $3,300, the per-election limit for individual donations in federal races.

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OVER THE YEARS, I HAVE GOTTEN THOUSANDS OF messages like this from Trump, his campaign, and other allies, including members of his family. During a two-week period in November, my email “Trash” folder accumulated seventy-four such appeals, an average of about five a day.

All of these emails ask for money and each one argues that the need to come up with some has never been greater at any prior time. Some offer merch, like coffee mugs featuring Trump’s mugshot from when he was booked on election racketeering charges in Georgia. Some gush about Trump’s status in the polls (“For the first time in NBC’s polling history, President Trump is CRUSHING Crooked Joe”). Others attack the efforts to bar Trump from ballots by invoking the Fourteenth Amendment (“So now, the Democrats want to forcibly stop you from voting for President Trump by illegally removing his name from the ballot”).

A few are quite explicit about the danger that the people receiving these emails are in. Like the one with the subject line “They’re going after my family.” This is part of what it said:

Trump launched THE PRESIDENT’S TRUST in February, shortly before he formally announced his revenge-themed bid for president through Trump Save America, a joint fundraising committee for his formal campaign (Donald J. Trump for President 2024, Inc.) and his main political action committee (Save America). Ninety percent of the money donated to this joint fundraising committee goes to the campaign—which, Federal Election Commission data show, raked in $60.5 million from November 15, 2022 to September 30, 2023. It spent just under $23 million and had $37.5 million cash-on-hand.

The remaining 10 percent goes to Save America, the PAC formed by Trump on November 9, 2020, two days after news outlets called the presidential election for Joe Biden. Unlike the campaign, the PAC can be used to pay for things that benefit Trump personally. It famously spent $650,000 on portraits of the president and former first lady that are destined for the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. It has also been used to pay for Trump’s legal bills, including $21.6 million worth in just the first half of this year.

As the New York Times noted, Save America had been getting just 1 percent of the contributions until earlier this year, when it was increased tenfold. (The Save America PAC also gets money from the pro-Trump super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., including $13.1 million during the first half of the year.) This increase, the paper said, “has allowed Mr. Trump to have his small donors pay for his legal expenses, rather than paying for them himself.”

One analysis found that two-thirds of the 2.5 million contributions to Save America from November 2020 to mid-2022 came from people who listed their occupation as “retired.” More than six in ten donations were from retired people giving $100 or less.

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QUESTIONS HAVE LONG SWIRLED AROUND the Trump campaign’s fundraising apparatus. The House January 6th Committee found that a joint financing operation by the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee had raised $250 million in the nine weeks between the November election and the attack on the Capitol. It was sending as many as twenty-five fundraising appeals per day to supporters, with many missives contending that Democrats had rigged the election and stolen the presidency from Trump.

In September 2022, a federal grand jury issued subpoenas to several witnesses regarding the Save America PAC’s fundraising activities. In August 2023, it came to light that Special Counsel Jack Smith was continuing to investigate whether Trump and his team violated federal laws by raising money off of what they knew were false claims of voter fraud.

This now appears to be a moot issue. In late October, the New York Times reported that Smith’s office had “quietly withdrawn” its earlier subpoenas, effectively ending its investigation into whether the PAC or campaign fund had committed any crimes by lying about the election. Mused the Gray Lady, somberly, “Political fund-raising materials often engage in bombast or exaggeration, and a fine line exists between criminal behavior and solicitations protected by the First Amendment.”

Once again, the fine line has been drawn in favor of cutting Trump a break. And so his fact-defying funding appeals are continuing unabated and will surely ramp up as his campaign gets going in earnest. If I were to join Trump’s inner circle, as he has invited me to do, I would advise him to stop slamming on the gas with all these appeals. But that would cost at least $24, money I am saving for my retirement.