- The Reagan Foundation has requested that Trump Make America Great Again, a Trump campaign, and an RNC fundraising committee, stop using the image of President Ronald Reagan.
- The request comes after the committee offered donors a commemorative coin embossed with the image of President Donald Trump and President Ronald Reagan.
- RNC Communications Director Michael Ahrens told Forbes the request was a surprise because the foundation “has not objected to us using President Reagan’s image before.”
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The Reagan Foundation told the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee to stop using the image of the former president and conservative icon Ronald Reagan in a fundraising campaign.
The request comes after the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, a joint RNC-Trump campaign fundraising committee, offered a set of commemorative coins to supporters who donated more than $ 45. They were stamped with the image of President Ronald Reagan on one side and that of President Donald Trump on the other.
The foundation’s request to stop using Reagan’s image in the fundraising campaign was first reported by Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty on Saturday.
Reagan Foundation director of marketing Melissa Giller confirmed the request in a statement to The Hill.
“We own the image of President Reagan and they used his image for the currency without our consent. We called the RNC and asked them to stop using Pres Reagan on the currency and they agreed,” Giller said.
The Reagan Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment. The Trump campaign also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
RNC Communications Director Michael Ahrens told Forbes that the request was a surprise because the foundation “has not objected to us using President Reagan’s image before,” but said they “will stop emailing this fundraising request as a courtesy. “
Ron Reagan attends a birthday celebration held in honor of his father, former President of the United States Ronald Reagan, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on February 6, 2011, in Simi Valley, California.
Eric Thayer / Getty Images
Reagan is among the most popular former American presidents. A succession of Republican candidates over the years have tried to present themselves as his successor and praised his legacy.
Trump has followed suit, naming Reagan as his favorite president in a Fox News interview shortly after taking office in January 2017, but criticizing his predecessor for his free-market trade policies.
It’s not the first time Trump has sought political gain by using the Reagan image, with the president sharing a photograph of him and Reagan taken in 1987 and a fabricated quote from Reagan praising him in a tweet last July.
But members of the Reagan family have been scathing in their criticism of Trump.
Ronald Reagan’s son Ron Reagan commented in a January 2018 interview with the Daily Beast that his father would never have supported him, describing him as “a treasonous president who is betraying his country.”
In an interview with Yahoo News in February, Reagan’s daughter Patti Davis accused Trump of endangering American democracy and criticized the Republican Party for refusing to take a position against him.
She said the Trump campaign had distorted the meaning of Make America Great Again, her campaign slogan coined by Reagan during his successful run for president in 1980.
“I think it has obviously taken on a completely different meaning because what it seems to mean now is ‘making the United States white and racist again and small-minded again,'” he said.
The Reagan Foundation’s job is, according to its website, “to complete the unfinished work of President Reagan and preserve the eternal principles he upheld. “
Reagan and his wife, Nancy, handed over control of his image rights to the foundation in the 1990s. The 40th president died in 2004, at the age of 93.
