Donald Trump Jr. made a claim about his father, Donald Trump, that’s wild even by his lofty standards.
“He doesn’t need their money,” Trump Jr. said on Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) when asked about his father’s appeal to the grassroots vs. the corporate interests.
Other politicians, he said, are beholden to donors “if they want that money to continue.”
Trump Jr.’s father entered politics in 2015 by claiming his wealth meant he didn’t need anyone else’s money and vowing to self-fund his campaign.
But he’s since raised hundreds of millions of dollars, including half a billion since he lost the 2020 election, according to OpenSecrets.
While Trump Jr. may have been referring specifically to big-money donors and corporate interests, the ex-president has had plenty of those on his side as well as grassroots contributors.
In 2020, MarketWatch reported that Trump raised five times more than President Joe Biden from S&P 500 CEOs, and Forbes identified 133 billionaires or billionaire spouses who contributed to Trump in that election cycle.
Some of Trump’s donors’ money ends up in his own pockets, and some has been used to pay his attorneys.
Twitter critics chimed in: