President Trump is worth $2.1 billion, according to Forbes.
In case you’ve forgotten your grade-school math, that’s 2,100 millions. If he spent 1 million dollars, he’d have 2,099 left.
That’s a lotta’ scratch.
But still, the president and Team Trump send out millions of emails a day asking average Americans for $35… or $20 … or $5 —or the change in their couch cushions.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden is cleaning Trump’s clock in fundraising. Biden’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced last week that they raised $364.5 million in August, a new record. The two sides are now pretty even in cash on hand.
“Despite Trump and the Republican National Committee [RNC] outraising Biden and the Democratic National Committee in July — $165 million to $140 million — the Democrats ended that month with $294 million in the bank, just $6 million less than the $300 million Trump and the RNC reported having on hand,” CNN reported.
But for Trump, that’s not enough money. A new report says the president has discussed spending as much as $100 million of his own cash to win re-election.
“The billionaire president has talked about the idea with multiple people, though he hasn’t yet committed to any self-funding, according to people briefed on internal deliberations,” Bloomberg News reported. “Though Trump personally contributed $66 million to his 2016 campaign, it would be unprecedented for an incumbent president to put his own money toward winning a second term.”
Trump has sought advice about whether he should self-fund as he scrutinizes heavy spending by his team earlier this year that failed to push him ahead of the former vice president in the polls. In addition, Biden’s campaign and associated Democratic entities have recently raised more than Trump and his allies.
A Trump campaign spokesman told the news agency that fundraising is going along just fine.
“President Trump’s fundraising is breaking records and we are paying close attention to the budget, allowing us to invest twice as much from now until Election Day than we did in 2016,” Tim Murtaugh said. “President Trump has also built the world’s greatest digital fundraising operation, a dominant ground game, and a third advantage Joe Biden can never match — enthusiasm.”
Still, coming up with $100 million might be difficult, even for a billionaire. “Trump had between $46.7 million and $156.5 million in various savings, checking and money market accounts at the end of 2019, according to his most recent financial disclosure. Government officials disclose the value of their assets in broad ranges,” Bloomberg reported.
The New York Times reported over the weekend that Trump may have cash problems, saying his campaign “is expected to increase television spending next week, but several Republicans said that Bill Stepien, Mr. Trump’s campaign manager since July, was taking a cautious approach after the former leadership spent huge sums on television and digital ads earlier this year, to no discernible effect.”
In another piece headlined “How Trump’s Billion-Dollar Campaign Lost Its Cash Advantage,” the Times said, “Mr. Trump’s financial supremacy has evaporated. Of the $1.1 billon his campaign and the party raised from the beginning of 2019 through July, more than $800 million has already been spent. Now some people inside the campaign are forecasting what was once unthinkable: a cash crunch with less than 60 days until the election, according to Republican officials briefed on the matter.”
Related: Biden, DNC Take In Record Breaking Haul In August, Pull Down $300 Million