Of the $1.1 million his hotels and country clubs have collected from Republican candidates and committees this year, 80% is from entities Trump controls.
By S.V. Date
WASHINGTON – Even as he leverages his presidency to make himself millions, perhaps even billions of dollars, Donald Trump is also funneling Republican donor money into his own cash registers through the political committees he controls.
In the 10 months since he retook office, the Republican National Committee has spent at least $796,513 at Trump’s hotels and country clubs, while MAGA Inc., Trump’s super PAC, has spent $60,733, according to a HuffPost analysis of Federal Election Commission data.
The figures are based on filings to date, with some committees providing updates only twice a year. The total number for 2025 will not be disclosed until the end of January 2026.
The combined $857,246 represents just under four-fifths of the $1.1 million that the Republican candidate and committees spent at his properties.
The RNC, for example, spent $193,145.70 on March 5 to hold an event at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s country club and residence in Palm Beach, Florida. Two months later, on May 2, the committee spent $307,202.49 for an event at his golf resort in Doral, near Miami’s airport.
Three weeks later, on May 30, MAGA Inc. spent $20,711.84 at Trump’s golf course in Sterling, Virginia.
In all, 73 different GOP candidates and committees sent money Trump’s way, from $45.20 from Wyoming congresswoman Harriett Hageman’s campaign to $1,461.13 by the Massachusetts Republican Party to the five- and six-figure sums spent by MAGA Inc. and the RNC.
Directing committees that he controlled, and encouraging Republican candidates he did not, to spend at his properties — thereby putting all profits into his own pockets — was a strategy he also used in his first term in office.
His Washington, D.C., hotel, blocks from the White House and sold by Trump after he lost re-election and business dried up, took in $2.6 million from 112 different GOP candidates and committees through his presidential tenure.
“When Trump rakes in tens of millions of dollars from crypto deals, it’s easy to miss when he grifts hundreds of thousands of dollars from his political apparatus, but those numbers add up. Ask an average American if they think pocketing $800,000 is a big deal or chump change,” said Jordan Libowitz, head of communications for the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
“What makes it worse is that this money was originally donated with the intention of helping elect candidates and push a political agenda. More to the point, if there’s no limit to which he’s willing to use the presidency to profit himself, then there’s no limit to the ways America could be up for sale,” he said.
Trump has openly used his office to promote his own business interests — a dictionary definition of public corruption — unlike any president since at least the start of the 20th century. In May, Trump used the White House’s imprimatur to stage a dinner honoring the largest purchasers of his crypto “meme” coins. In July, he spent $10 million of taxpayer money to speak at the grand opening of his golf course in Aberdeen, Scotland, and had the White House publicize the event. Earlier this year, Trump solicited a $400 million luxury Boeing 747 from Qatar for temporary use as Air Force 1 before it is turned over to his presidential library. Qatar was recently given permission to use an Air Force Base in Idaho for its own military and given a NATO-like security guarantee if it is attacked.
Trump’s biggest money maker, though, close to a $1 billion in just the first half of 2025, is the sale of so-called “tokens” by his family’s World Liberty Financial cryptocurrency business, with much of the money coming from foreign investors.
Compared with business profits, the money coming from his political committees is far more modest but still significant. Trump cannot serve another presidential term after his current one ends, but that has not stopped him from asking for money from his millions of small-dollar donors.
He has raised a total of $28.1 million for his Never Surrender “leadership” PAC, the proceeds of which he can largely use in any manner he wishes, including personal expenses, and $176.9 million for his MAGA Inc. super PAC, which he can use to support or oppose federal candidates.
While much of the money to the super PAC comes from wealthy donors — many of whom either want some policy change from Trump’s administration or want his government to leave them alone — the vast majority of the money flowing to Never Surrender comes from his supporters who continue to send him $5 or $10 or $50 in response to a never-ending stream of email and text message solicitations.
Just in the past two weeks, Trump has (dubiously) told his small-dollar donors that he just tried calling them, lied to them about ending all taxes on Social Security benefits, asked them whether they loved him and claimed FBI Director Kash Patel had just given him evidence so damning that it required them to make an immediate cash donation. There are typically several such solicitations per day.
One GOP consultant familiar with the fundraising operation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Trump seems to be raising money from his devoted followers because he can — using the same scripts and formulas he has used for years. “It is all algorithms that are paying off,” the consultant said.
While Trump’s leadership PAC cannot give any more than $5,000 to a candidate per election, his super PAC can support candidates or attack their opponents without any limits. The $177 million it has collected through June is $33 million more than the Republican National Committee raised through October.
Whether Trump can win races for his preferred candidates, however, is another matter. In 2022, his handpicked candidates turned in a dismal record in the November general election, and he was not even able to get his way in all the GOP primaries.
Indeed, Trump’s super PAC at the time spent more on opposing Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in his primary than in any other race. Kemp nevertheless won the primary handily and went on to win a second term in the November general election.
