Trump Finds A Big-Dollar Underwriter For His Campaign: The American Taxpayer

More than any president in modern times, he has openly conscripted American taxpayers into underwriting the costs of his reelection campaign, from travel aboard $273,000-an-hour Air Force 1 to the dozens of staff who arrange his trips to the salaries of his own White House employees who regularly ― and illegally ― engage in politics on his behalf.

And on Wednesday, Trump told Fox News he was “thinking about” holding his renomination speech later this month on the South Lawn of the White House ― which is government property.

On July 20, from the Oval Office, Trump claimed that the violence in Chicago was worse than Afghanistan, and would get worse still if he lost in November.

And in the White House Cabinet Room 11 days later, Trump claimed Biden’s policies were even more radical than those of Vermont’s Bernie Sanders.

The White House Twitter account routinely posts clips attacking Democrats and campaign-ad-style videos featuring Trump.

Economic adviser Larry Kudlow, featured in a White House video shot on White House grounds, urged people to vote for Trump.

Yet Trump has pushed for an advantage that his predecessors scrupulously avoided: literally making campaign remarks during events that are purportedly part of his official duties. .

“The president simply doesn’t care about the rules, never has, and there are few if any consequences,” said Rory Cooper, a top aide to former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and, before that, a staffer in the George W.

In responses to HuffPost over a number of months, White House officials have made no attempt to deny that Trump uses official events for campaigning.

“White House staff and personnel do not use official resources to produce campaign speeches,” said one official on condition of anonymity, adding that Trump’s prepared remarks for official events are vetted to make sure staff has not written political statements for him to read.

“So Joe Biden and President Obama freely allowed China to pillage our factories, plunder our communities, and steal our most precious secrets,” Trump said, reading off prepared remarks from his lectern.

“I think we see from their actions that (Trump and his staff) don’t care” about transforming “official” events into partisan ones and ignoring the Hatch Act, said Anthony Scaramucci, a longtime Trump supporter, briefly a White House aide, and now a fierce critic