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Post by Admin on Aug 5, 2021 5:37:44 GMT
Donald Trump wants his supporters to carry "Trump Cards." The Trump camp sent two emails on August 4 asking supporters to get on board with carrying the red and gold cards, which look like credit cards and bear the former president's signature. "The card you select will be carried by Patriots all around the Country. They will be a sign of your dedicated support to our movement to SAVE AMERICA, and I'm putting my full trust in you," Trump wrote in the first email. The Trump team sent a follow-up email later that night, which read: "We're about to launch our Official Trump Cards, which will be reserved for President Trump's STRONGEST supporters." "We recently met with the President in his Florida office and showed him four designs," the email continued. "Originally we were planning on releasing just one design, but when President Trump saw the cards on his desk, he said, 'These are BEAUTIFUL. We should let the American People decide - they ALWAYS know best!'" The Trump camp did not outline exactly what entitled one to carry a "Trump Card." Clicking on the link to vote for one's favorite design brought the user to a fundraising page. The Trump team did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.
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Post by Admin on Aug 6, 2021 5:19:40 GMT
President Donald Trump reportedly encouraged supporters in an email Wednesday to help choose a design for a "membership" card, meant to signal the holder's loyalty to Trump and his "America First" vision. But people quickly noticed a few problems with the designs — the word "official" was misspelled on one, and another featured an eagle logo that bore an uncanny resemblance to the Nazi eagle emblem first used by the party in 1920s Germany. The call to action was included in at least two emails sent by Trump's Save America PAC, according to Insider, which first reported the news. "We recently met with the President in his Florida office and showed him four designs," one read. "Originally we were planning on releasing just one design, but when President Trump saw the cards on his desk, he said, 'These are BEAUTIFUL. We should let the American People decide - they ALWAYS know best!'" The email went on to say that the cards would only be "reserved for President Trump's STRONGEST supporters" and "will be carried by Patriots all around the Country." Of the four red-and-black designs, one features a gold eagle with its wings outstretched, another shows the U.S. Seal, and a third is set on a backdrop with an image of the U.S. flag waving. All include Trump's signature in a prominent position. The flag card was also emblazoned with "Trump Offical [sic] Card," quickly sparking mockery online. "Nothing spells official quite like… misspelling 'official.'" anti-Trump Republican group The Lincoln Project tweeted.
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Post by Admin on Aug 8, 2021 21:51:03 GMT
Fact or Fiction: Trump putting out 'Trump Cards?'
Some images you may have seen on social media claim to show "Trump Cards" that former President Donald Trump wants his supporters to carry. It's true.
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Post by Admin on Aug 9, 2021 2:14:30 GMT
Former President Trump's campaign and the Republican Party returned around $12.8 million to donors in the first six months of 2021, The New York Time reported.
It was previously reported in April that Trump's reelection campaign had refunded around $122 million to donors in 2020. Recently released federal records have revealed that the Trump campaign has so far returned $135 million to campaign donors.
Shortly before Election Day last year, Trump's campaign made recurring payments the default option on its donation website, meaning that people had to uncheck the option to avoid being charged weekly.
The Times found that the campaign had attempted to obscure this detail by placing it in the fine print beneath multiple lines of bolded and capitalized text
The campaign also added a second pre-checked box that doubled a donor's donation along with new lines of text that distracted readers from what they were agreeing to.
Trump's reelection campaign reportedly withdrew more than $3,000 in less than a month from one donor who was in hospice care and had donated $500 in September.
The Federal Election Commission unanimously voted in May to recommend that Congress ban campaigns from pre-checking boxes as the Trump campaign did. The Times noted that other GOP lawmakers, including former Republican Georgia Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, also used pre-checked boxes in their respective reelection campaigns.
Shortly after the FEC's recommendation was made, Senate Democrats introduced a bill to ban the practice of pre-checking boxes for recurring campaign donations.
In July, The Hill reported that four attorneys general were looking into the practice of pre-checking boxes. The investigations are being carried out by New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), Connecticut Attorney General William Tong (D), Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) and Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh (D).
These actions by the Trump campaign caused a wave of fraud complaints to credit card companies, the Times reported, with supporters demanding refunds for their unwittingly expanded donations.
“It’s pretty clear that the Trump campaign was engaging in deceptive tactics,” Peter Loge, director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at George Washington University, told the Times. “If you have to return that much money you are doing something either very wrong or very unethical.”
The Times previously reported that Trump's campaign has returned more than 10 percent of the $1.2 billion that it raised. President Biden's campaign, in comparison, returned about 2.2 percent of donations.
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Post by Admin on Sept 4, 2021 1:30:33 GMT
Trump Tower is reportedly struggling to lease out its prime office space during the disruption of the pandemic, but it does have one reliable tenant: the ex-president’s own political operation. According to The Washington Post, the Make America Great Again PAC has been paying the Trump Organization $37,541.67 each month to rent some rarely used office space on the 15th floor of the NYC building. The Post reports the super PAC was previously paying $3,000 a month to rent a kiosk in the tower’s lobby, even when the lobby was closed.
Campaign-finance experts said the arrangement doesn’t appear to be illegal but is ethically dodgy. “He’s running a con,” said Paul S. Ryan from watchdog group Common Cause. “Talking about political expenses—but, in reality, raising money for self-enrichment.” Trump spokeswoman Liz Harrington said the PAC is renting the space at “market rate... to help President Trump build a financial juggernaut to help elect America First conservatives and flip both the House and Senate to the Republicans in the midterm elections.”
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