President Donald Trump is scheduled to deliver an Oval Office address during prime time Tuesday night — and his reelection campaign is counting on the address to rake in half a million dollars.
A Tuesday email from Trump’s reelection campaign blared: “We need to raise $5OO,OOO in ONE DAY.”
Aside from bizarrely using the letter “O” instead of zeroes and redundantly claiming “Illegal criminals are flooding our nation,” the email is an obvious politicalization of an Oval Office address.
Trump asked supporters at the end of the email: “Please make a special contribution of $5 by 9 PM EST to our Official Secure the Border Fund to have your name sent to me after my speech.”
The campaign also sent out a text hyping the speech, according to The New York Times’ Katie Rogers:
Fundraising over his address pic.twitter.com/dXYEDVXlUQ
— Katie Rogers (@katierogers) January 8, 2019
The “Official Secure the Border Fund” is not official at all, nor is it a fund to secure the border: Donations, as always with Trump’s campaign emails, go to the President and Republican National Committee’s joint 2020 fundraising effort. The money will help Trump and other Republican candidates get elected.
What’s more, the White House pleaded ignorance of the email on Tuesday.
“I thought that these speeches were not supposed to be political?” Fox News’ Harris Faulkner asked Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway Tuesday, after noting the email.
“I haven’t seen that letter, and here at the White House, I’m not meant to be political, so I don’t have a comment on that,” Conway responded.
@KellyannePolls pleads ignorance of @realDonaldTrump's email fundraising off of tonight's Oval Office speech. pic.twitter.com/KIhA0EkV5A
— Matt Shuham (@mattshuham) January 8, 2019
H/t Dave Levinthal.
