It was the best of times.
It was the worst of times.
If Charles Dickens were writing a book about campaign finances,
it would be clear who is on what side.
The Democrats had a record night last night bringing in
$26 million
on the strength of the party's star power 3 presidents
Obama,
Clinton and Biden telling Radio City Music Hall that November
isn't about not voting for Trump,
it's about building on the success of Joe Biden's first
term quote.
It's the positive case for somebody who's done an outstanding
job,
said Obama. On the other side is Donald Trump,
whose campaign coffers are being drained by legal fees over
5 million last month alone,
more than 60 million since the start of last year.
Joining us now this BJ's Vaughn Hilliard
in California for US White House Correspondent Mike Memley.
Also with us is Amy Parnes,
Senior Political Correspondent at The Hill.
Alright, let's let's start with the
Democrats the best of times,
if you will. That's right.
That's quite a bit of money.
It's quite a bit of money.
The first lady, Jill Biden,
kicked off the night last night by calling this the
fundraiser to end all fundraisers.
And the people who paid a lot of money to
get into that room,
they got their money's worth.
I mean, Lizzo was great.
Mindy Kaling was funny. Stephen Colbert kicked things off with
the joke.
He said you don't have three presents in town for,
you know, this is a historic moment and none of
them are going to a court appearance.
Obviously, Donald Trump was the punchline off.
And last night I thought,
what was so fascinating, though,
Katie, is, you know, you have surrogates in a campaign
for a reason.
They can say things you can't.
They can praise in a way that you won't praise
yourself.
And that's really the role Barack Obama especially played last
night.
I think it's so interesting and not to cut you
off there,
but that what Biden's been knocked for is not
bringing himself up, not talking
positively about the success of his
first term in office. And we heard that from,
as Mike said, from a surrogate.
From the surrogate in question,
President Obama. Yeah. And there there is no one better
to do that than President Obama.
I talked to people in the room last night,
a few donors who said the vibe was electric.
These were people who were feeling a little down recently.
They're looking at the economy.
They think that people are still down on inflation numbers.
They're looking at immigration. They think that the president has
bungled that issue a little bit.
And so they kind of needed that rush and they
got that last night.
Let's play a little bit of what happened last night.
This guy denies there's a global warming.
This guy wants to get rid of not only Roe
V Wade,
but he, which he's brags about having done.
He wants to get rid of the ability of anyone,
anywhere in America never to choose.
I mean, all the things he's doing are so
old. Speaking of old
and,
you know, a little old and out of shape.
Anyway,
ma'am, they're singing to the choir here.
Do they expect that this message is going to translate
to
people outside of Radio City Music Hall?
Well, people outside of Radio City Music Hall really couldn't
see it other than these selective clips.
I'm a member of the
WHCI have to say it.
We didn't have our cameras in the room.
We couldn't really show what happened last night.
But as you see there,
they're in this sort of like,
let's get under Donald Trump's skin phase of the campaign.
I think they know that they can provoke him,
get him to make mistakes,
which is really useful for them right now.
I thought what was so interesting,
though, really last night, the role Obama played,
there were hecklers, there were interruptions.
We knew we we've seen this at events all across
the country.
And Obama was the one to scold the protesters,
to say, listen, presidency is a lonely seat.
These are not easy decisions.
You can be morally pure,
but you also have to then work with people you
disagree with to get things done.
And the the crowd really erupted.
It was like a cathartic moment for them in the
room
again, $26 million. Quite a lot of money.
Hillary Clinton though, outraised Donald Trump in 2016.
It didn't mean that she was going to win,
so money isn't always the answer here.
There was interesting reporting in Politico about how President Biden
hasn't reached out to Republicans who have not endorsed Donald
Trump.
Republicans that maybe could help the Democrats,
people like the the governor of Maryland or the former
governor of Maryland
and Chris Christie who was flirting with a third party
ticket.
Why is that? Well, I think you're starting to see
them do more of that.
I think you saw President Biden say,
you know, to Nikki Haley supporters,
for instance, if you want to support me,
come over and they're kind of opening that door to
people and they're they're trying to do that a little
bit more.
If you're reading between the lines,
they're they're making that making that case to them like
we are here for you don't feel obligated to support
the former president.
So you'll see more of that,
I think, coming up. But it sounds like it's more
to voters and less to the individuals.
Exactly, yeah. Murray Vaughn, let's bring you in and talk
about Donald Trump.
So finances are not as good of a story on
his side of things.
Talk to me about the sheer amount of money that
he's spending,
not on campaign events or ads,
but legal fees,
right? More than $80 million
at this point have been diverted from political causes for
his legal bills at this point in time.
And that is where yesterday a senior official for the
campaign conceded that over the next seven months,
the Trump campaign is not going to be able to
match the Biden panic campaign dollar for dollar,
acknowledging that they will in fact be out fundraised by
the Biden campaign.
But that same campaign official insisted that they will have
enough money to win.
Of course for Donald Trump.
That is part of this joint fundraising committee that has
been set up in which a part of the
any donors donation will in fact go to the Save
America pack,
which is the organization that has been going to his
legal bills,
acknowledging that they are continuing to mount.
But next week there is another major fundraiser that is
going to be at Mar A Lago and the Trump
campaign.
It's contending that they are going to do better than
the Biden campaign Last night.
Their goal is $33 million,
some key bit longtime donors to Donald Trump from Steve
Wynn,
Kelly Leffler, Todd Ricketts, The
Mercer's, Linda McMahon, Woody Johnson,
Harold Hamm, Folks that are coming down there paying the
price of over
$800,000 to try to fill Donald Trump's campaign coffers.
Because right now, from the last FEC filing report,
the Biden campaign has more than doubled.
What? The Trump campaign had some cash on hand.
I want to let you,
though, you're looking at an image of Donald Trump there
yesterday,
just hours before that fundraiser
in New York City, Donald Trump was in Long Island
and attended the wake of an officer who was killed
well on duty.
I want to let you listen to part of what
Donald Trump said on Fox earlier this morning about that.
I think that politically he can't support the police.
I think he's also making a mistake.
But I think politically his
his base won't let him support the police.
And I support the police,
I would say, at the highest level of any president
by far,
maybe double or triple.
Of course, more than 100 officers on January 6th were
injured when individuals under Donald Trump's name attacked the US
Capitol.
And of course Donald Trump on the very same day
you just heard those remarks,
he was attacking the daughter of the judge in New
York City who is going to be overseeing his case.
So there's often times a double standard from the former
president when it comes to the justice system in Tui
attacks versus who he appraises.
Of course, he is all but ignored the death of
Brian Sicknick and the four other officers who died by
suicide in the months after the January 6th attack.
And of course, violent crime around the United States has
gone down over the course of the last year.
But for Donald Trump he is been keen to use
crime across the country is his own bludgeon to take
on Joe Biden and the Democrats With just seven months
until the general election. Katie I I wonder how the
fundraisers or the donors feel about spending money on Donald
Trump.
I'm the small to the very big donors when a
lot of that money is just being diverted directly to
his to lawyers fees.
It's a good question, you know,
And I think to a great extent it is
a part of the cost that comes with supporting Donald
Trump understanding that his fate on trial is going to
be intrinsically tied to his own political future.
And by consequence, whether a Republican is in the White
House next year and able to advance the policies of
what these major donors,
individuals who are willing to front more than
$800,000 to support a political figure,
are looking to advance for their own causes.
And so for them, you know,
this is a part of what comes with this.
We should note that as part of those contributions,
only a few $1000 are able to actually go toward
the pack itself.
So this is more of an implication for the small
dollar donors who are giving and the questions around the
extent to which the RNC,
which insisted just yesterday they are going to ramp up
and begin hiring hundreds of staffers to place around the
country.
But right now, the Trump campaign and the RNC are
well behind what the Democrats have been able to effectually
operationalized over the course of the last year.
Well, Donald Trump and his team were just trying to
make it through this primary and wade through what is
half politics and half legal at this point.
Yvonne, do we know if Donald Trump himself has spent
any of his own money on his legal fees so
far?
That is a good question.
Not at this point in time.
We don't have that sort of insight into the actual
legal bills.
But what we are able to do is look at
FEC.
These are the federal election campaign finance reports.
And that's where you're able to see where the dollars
in those reports every month go to law firms.
And there's an extensive list of law firms that have
been the beneficiaries of Donald Trump's
political funds that have been allowed through that Save America
pact to go to them.
Amy talked about this a little bit and muted as
well.
The feeling of this campaign,
the biting campaign, and how they feel their voters are
feeling about them right now.
What is their sense of the next few months?
What is their focus going to be on?
Do they feel good about President Biden going up against
Donald Trump in November?
Well, if the Biden team really does see the campaign
playing out in phases and the the voters that really
will decide the election,
the swing voters, the voters who might stay home,
they are waiting to sort of engage with them at
a later stage of the campaign.
Because let's let's face it,
neither candidate is popular. People don't like politics right now.
And those are the people that are going to wait
this out a little bit.
And so they're trying and you see this last night,
get Democrats to come home,
get them to feel enthusiastic.
One of the things, one of the things I was
told,
President Biden has said, former president said privately to President
Biden is,
you know, the state of the union was great.
It electrified the party, seeing you out on the road
a lot.
It's good. Keep it up,
keep it up. And I saw Julie Chavez Rodriguez,
the
campaign manager, last night. She said we got to just
keep this momentum going.
Mike Memory, Amy Parnes, thank you so much.
Von Hilliard, thank you as well.