As his fundraising has slipped, Trump has upped his use of federal resources to compensate.
The farther behind Donald Trump has fallen in the competition for campaign dollars, the more he’s milked government resources to make up the difference.
Millions of boxes of food doled out to needy families — with letters signed by the president taking credit stuffed inside. An $8 billion program for drug-discount cards to seniors featuring Trump branding — intended to arrive before the Nov. 3 election. A $300 million advertising blitz to “defeat despair” over the coronavirus pandemic — the biggest threat to Trump’s reelection.
Each of those initiatives have two things in common: They’re paid for with taxpayer money, and they are plainly intended to help Trump’s flagging reelection campaign. The actions are just the latest examples of how the president has eviscerated the traditional boundaries separating politics from government.
His heavy reliance on federal resources and his own executive powers to win reelection come as Trump has fallen more than $100 million behind Joe Biden in TV ad spending, and slipped to a double-digit deficit in national polls.
As the election approaches, Trump has moved beyond using his control over federal resources to deploying government officials to carry out his political messaging. Last week, Trump suggested that his attorney general prosecute some of his political enemies. Days ago, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo vowed he would release Hillary Clinton’s emails “before the election,” moving to resurrect a volatile issue from the 2016 race. And Attorney General William Barr has put the weight of the Justice Department behind Trump’s unfounded allegations of voter fraud.
“The president is increasingly using all the levers he’s got for political purposes,” says Donald Ayer, a former deputy attorney general under George H.W. Bush who has endorsed Biden. “You can wonder whether he’s getting a bit desperate … It appears to me that the president is making increasingly outrageous demands and comments as time goes along.”
Presidents of both parties have regularly used the power of incumbency to their advantage during election years. Jimmy Carter made political ads from the Oval Office. Ronald Reagan was seated behind the Resolute Desk when he announced he was running for reelection. Bill Clinton invited political supporters to spend the night at the White House. And George W. Bush delivered his Republican National Convention speech from the White House, saying his duties overseeing the response to a looming hurricane kept him in Washington.
But Trump has taken the use of the federal government for politics to another level. And the pace and intensity of his maneuvers have increased as his poll numbers have dropped and his campaign war chest has dwindled, according to government watchdog groups.
“I do firmly believe that Trump has blended his personal business and the functioning of government in a way we’ve seen perhaps never in United States history,” said Nick Schwellenbach, a senior investigator with the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight.
Trump’s boldest display was the Republican National Convention ceremony on the South Lawn in August, replete with fireworks and an opera singer. He trampled over government and political boundaries by issuing a pardon and holding a naturalization ceremony during the convention. At the same time, Pompeo broke with longtime tradition by delivering a convention speech from Jerusalem, and Ivanka Trump, a White House aide, gave remarks from the White House.
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The farther behind Donald Trump has fallen in the competition for campaign dollars, the more he’s milked government resources to make up the difference https://t.co/9EwWyW9bzw
— POLITICO (@politico) October 15, 2020
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