Former President Donald Trump is aiming to break a brand-new fundraising record just set by President Biden.
Biden, in a fundraising appearance with former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall on Thursday night, hauled in over $26 million.
The president’s re-election campaign called the money raised at the star-studded event — which set a record for a single fundraiser — “historic.”
The fundraising haul helped Biden boost his already massive cash advantage over Trump.
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President Biden, center, flanked by former Presidents Barack Obama, left, and Bill Clinton, appears at a fundraising event at Radio City Music Hall in New York on Thursday. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
But the former president is looking to rake in up to $33 million when he teams up with some of the wealthiest Republicans in the country at a April 6 fundraiser in Palm Beach, Florida. A source familiar with details of the fundraiser confirmed the dollar amount, which was first reported by the Financial Times.
Billionaire investor and hedge fund founder John Paulson is hosting the top-dollar fundraiser, which is the kickoff event for the recently formed Donald J. Trump National Committee.
The event will include major contributors, some of whom stayed on the sidelines or supported the former president’s rivals during the recently concluded primary season.
Among those listed as co-chairs of the fundraiser are hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah Mercer. They were major boosters of Trump in 2016 but mostly sat out the former president’s 2020 re-election campaign.
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Also on the list of co-chairs are oil magnate Harold Hamm; hotelier and space entrepreneur Robert Bigelow; casino giant Steve Wynn; and Todd Ricketts, a co-owner of the Chicago Cubs, a member of the TD Ameritrade board of directors and former RNC finance chairman.
The “Inaugural Leadership Dinner” will be held at Paulson’s Palm Beach home, which isn’t far from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club and resort.
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a Super Tuesday election night party at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on March 5. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
The fundraiser is a further sign of the coalescing of much of the Republican donor class around Trump, now that he’s clinched the GOP nomination and is the party’s presumptive presidential nominee. A source in the former president’s political orbit called the fundraiser a “come home to Trump” moment.
Trump has long had strained relations with some in the Republican Party’s donor class, but he has worked hard in recent months to improve relations. He’s hosted some of these major contributors in recent weeks.
“There’s no question that most of the major donors who were with [Ron] DeSantis or [Nikki] Haley are coming on board and rallying around the president. I think everybody realizes what’s at stake in the 2024 elections,” Republican Jewish Coalition CEO Matt Brooks, who has close ties to the donor class, told Fox News.
One reason Trump faces such a large fundraising deficit to Biden is that the president has been able to raise money in conjunction with the Democratic National Committee and Democratic state parties across the country.
But a joint fundraising committee set up last week by the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) will allow them to similarly coordinate among themselves and with state GOP chapters from coast to coast.
The committee was formed after the former president and his campaign team took control of the RNC and installed allies in the national party committee’s top leadership positions.
An RNC and Trump campaign official, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, on Thursday acknowledged that “we’ll never be able to raise dollar to dollar with Biden… but we’re going to have what we need to win.”
The official described the burgeoning Trump campaign-RNC fundraising effort as “impressive” and added that “we feel really good about where we’re going to be this time next month.”
Former President Donald Trump gestures to the crowd at a campaign rally in Vandalia, Ohio, on March 16. (AP Photo/Jeff Dean)
Biden’s campaign last week taunted Trump over the latest fundraising figures, which spotlighted the president’s formidable fundraising advantage.
“If Donald Trump put up these kinds of numbers on ‘The Apprentice,’ he’d fire himself,” Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler said in a statement.
But next week’s Palm Beach gala will give Trump some fundraising news to showcase, after a slew of critical coverage spotlighting his cash hauls and the strain his multiple criminal and civil cases are putting on his campaign.
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Save America, the Trump-aligned political action committee that he’s been using to pay his legal bills, spent more than it raised last month, with nearly all the expenditures going to cover the former president’s legal costs.
But the Trump campaign says fundraising is soaring, with more than $1 million per day hauled in online the past six days and over $10.6 million brought in last week from nearly 300,000 digital donors.
“Donald Trump is a ratings and clicks juggernaut, so we have an ability to make use of earned media in a way that Biden cannot,” the campaign highlighted.
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