Things took a sharp turn during a phone call between Donald Trump and one of his top donors, according to a new report, with some Republicans fearing he was jeopardizing his campaign funding.
The president had a phone call last week with conservative donor Sheldon Adelson, the 87-year-old U.S. business tycoon who has promised to donate at least $ 100 million to re-elect Trump and his allies at Capitol Hill.
During that phone call, Mr. Trump appeared unaware of how much Mr. Adelson had already donated to his campaign, and how much more he was willing to spend to help other Republicans win in November, an anonymous source with immediate knowledge of the call told Politico.
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The publication said Mr Trump had “antagonized” Mr Adelson during the call, which was initially intended to focus on the coronavirus pandemic, a congressional stimulus package and the nation’s faltering economy. t suffered a massive blow after Covid-19 caused nationwide orders.
But the president had other plans, presumably required to know why Mr Adelson had not helped enough to support his re-election. The call came when several national polls showed that Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, was pulling ahead of Republican involvement in battlefield states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, which Mr Trump handed over in the 2016 election.
The report also said it was “unclear” to Mr Adelson’s colleagues whether the billionaire would change his plans to continue high-stakes elections in 2020 for Mr Trump as his conservative ally.
Mr. Adelson and his wife donated a whopping $ 124 million to political campaigns in the 2018 midterm elections, a record for the leading business family. He has consistently donated large sums of money near the end of the election to Super Pacs and dark money groups.
The Republican donor began supporting Mr. Trump in 2016, when he pledged to campaign in support of Israel, such as moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, and visited the White House during the discovery of the peace plan. of the Middle East of the administration.
However, Mr. Trump ran around promising to fund his own campaign, saying in June 2015, “I do not need money for one.”
“I use my own money,” he said at the time. ‘I do not use lobbyists. I do not use the donors. It does not matter to me. I’m really rich. ”
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