Trump makes his mugshot profitable with $45.5 million in revenue in three months | International

The mugshot that could have sunk any candidate for the presidency of the United States, has served Donald Trump to accelerate his fundraising machinery. There is no official data yet, but Trump's own campaign has announced that it achieved income of 45.5 million dollars (about 43 million euros at the current exchange rate) in the third quarter of the year. During that period he received his third and fourth indictments, both for crimes related to his attempt to subvert the result of the 2020 presidential election, in which he was defeated by Joe Biden.

Trump took advantage of the mugshot taken when he was booked in Georgia to sell t-shirts, mugs and all kinds of products with his image on them. In addition, his campaign bombarded registered users with messages asking for donations and the former president even published his first message in more than two and a half years on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, where he has 87 million followers. The message included the photo and a link to his campaign website, from where the products are marketed and money is asked for from supporters.

There is no data on how much spending has been in that period, but the Trump campaign assures that as of September 30 it had more than 37.5 million dollars in cash, of which 36 million are available for the primary campaign. The details of expenses and income for the third quarter must be communicated to the electoral authorities by all candidates before next October 15.

The Trump campaign attacks its — not so immediate — pursuer in the Republican primaries: “Meanwhile, the DeSanctimonious campaign [como llama despectivamente a Ron DeSantis, algo así como DeSanturrón] "admits that he only has $5 million in cash for the primary elections, a serious indication that Ron's candidacy may not make it to the Iowa caucuses in January, or even later this month," his statement said.

DeSantis has reported that he raised $15 million between July and September, a third of Trump's and less than the previous quarter. The governor of Florida does, however, have his coffers full of a political action committee that is not strictly campaign, but which he could draw on if necessary. Trump says that the governor of Florida is suffering an “exponential drop” in the polls and in fundraising, and has begun to attack Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina, whom he nicknames “brain brain” with his bully style. bird". In some polls, Haley is ahead of DeSantis in the states of New Hampshire and South Carolina, two of the frontrunners in the primary race.

The Trump campaign estimates the collection of the first quarter at 10 million dollars, that of the second at 35 million and that of the third at the aforementioned 45.5 million. “The third quarter numbers are even more impressive considering that the summer months are typically when most campaigns experience a decline in fundraising. “President Trump and his campaign have destroyed that idea,” his statement said.

The former president has a joint fundraising committee, the Save America PAC, which is one of those known as leadership PACs, with more room to dedicate it to expenses other than purely electoral ones, the official campaign committee (Donald J. Trump for president 2024, Inc) and the Super PAC Make America Great Again Inc, which has fewer fundraising limitations.

According to an analysis of the data provided to the Federal Electoral Commission by these entities carried out by EL PAÍS, the joint cash position went from 79.1 million dollars at the end of 2022 to 62.6 million at the end of the first half of 2023. That reflected that the Trump campaign was spending more than it took in, in part because of the tens of millions of dollars allocated to cover its legal expenses. The Trump campaign has not yet published the cash position of all these organizations at the end of the third quarter and it is not clear in its statement how many of them the figure of $37.5 million on hand refers to.

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