‘We should help them’: Trump trolls Democrats over election debt
Donald Trump has urged his supporters to donate to the Democrats amid reports Kamala Harris’s campaign has racked up millions in debts.
In what appears to be a tongue-in-cheek message from the president-elect, he said he was “very surprised” that Ms Harris’s campaign has allegedly run out of money and implored his supporters to do “whatever we can…to help them during this difficult period”.
Mr Trump won a second term as president this week after a decisive election victory in which he is projected to pick up all seven of the key swing states, despite his campaign spending less than half as much money as opponent.
The president-elect’s offer of charity comes after Federal Election Commission filings from mid-October, reported by the Financial Times, show that the Harris campaign and its Super Pacs raised $2.3 billion and spent $1.9 billion, whereas the Trump campaign took in just over $1.8 billion and spent $1.6 billion.
However, reports have since emerged that the Harris campaign ended at least $20 million in debt, prompting concerns that staff and vendors who helped put on star-studded concerts and celebrity appearances will not be paid.
Of apparent particular issue are extravagant sums the Harris campaign shelled out for a string of A-list speakers.
According to The New York Post, Ms Harris’s team spent up to $20 million on swing-state concerts on the eve of the election in an ultimately futile attempt to turn out the vote.
Campaign insiders said the cost of performances by Jon Bon Jovi in Detroit, Christina Aguilera in Las Vegas, Katy Perry in Pittsburgh and Lady Gaga in Philadelphia had a ruinous impact on the Democrats’ accounts.
Although the musicians performed free of charge, putting on the sets required a massive injection of financial resources and manpower.
Other costly outlays included $1 million to Oprah Winfrey’s production company following appearances from the television presenter at a series of campaign events, according to The Washington Examiner.
The outlet also reported that the Harris campaign spent a six-figure sum on building a set for the vice-president’s appearance on the popular Call Her Daddy podcast, which came out in October.
During the campaign, Mr Trump repeatedly criticised the Harris campaign’s decision to bank on star power as part of his attempt to cast her as out of touch with the concerns of ordinary voters.
Dressed as a garbage worker during a late-stage rally in Wisconsin, the president-elect railed against Beyoncé’s endorsement of the vice-president. “They got Beyoncé,” he told the crowd. “We don’t need Beyoncé, we don’t need anybody… all you got is me, and I don’t have a guitar.”
Reports of the Democrats’ financial woes come despite the Harris campaign raising record sums of money after she entered the race in July.
In the 24-hour period after Joe Biden announced he was dropping out, Ms Harris’ team raised more than $81 million, which they claimed was the largest single-day total in US history.
Within a week, her campaign had $200 million as Democratic donors rushed to support her run for the White House, and by the end of September, the campaign had set a new record for the biggest fund-raising quarter ever, pulling in $1 billion over a three-month period.
The campaign and allied committees reportedly raised $378 million in September alone, dwarfing the Trump campaign’s fundraising efforts which brought in $160 million.
The Democrats allocated the majority of their vast sums of money on ad spending, forking out $654.6 million on advertisements from when Ms Harris took over on July 22 until election day, according to the Wall Street Journal, outstripping the Trump campaign which spent $378.9 million on advertising.
A further $36 million was spent by the Harris campaign on in-person and digital outreach, the outlet reported.
By contrast, Republicans ran a highly focused campaign that used free media, such as appearances on a number of influential podcasts including The Joe Rogan Experience, to drum up support among hard-to-reach young male voters.
Donation pages for the Harris campaign remain active more than half a week after the vice-president’s decisive election defeat in an apparent attempt to draw in a final trickle of money to close its funding gaps.
One source described the Harris campaign’s concerts as “a real misuse of funds that could have been better spent on ads laying out economic policies” to voters concerned about high interest rates and inflation.
“It didn’t matter to have a bunch of celebrities talking to no one because, one, 75 million people already voted and, two, people were concerned about their own financial issues, not Oprah telling them America won’t exist,” the source told The New York Post.
The Democratic Party was contacted for comment.