Trump Bravely Volunteers Other People’s $400 Million

The president would like credit for saving Republicans, and possibly France, with a wallet whose owner remains unspecified.

Donald Trump has announced that he has spent, or will spend, more than $400 million helping Republicans win the midterms. Before we organize the candlelight vigil for his checking account, we should establish whose money this is.

His post doesn’t say. The Financial Times points to his allied super PAC, MAGA Inc., whose enormous fundraising reserves come largely from corporate donors and wealthy contributors. There’s no established basis for concluding that Donald personally reached into his trousers and extracted $400 million, although I appreciate that the sentence invites us to picture an aide holding him upside down over a bucket.

Nevertheless, he would like us to know that spending this money is his “Great Honor.”

What a beautiful sacrifice. Somewhere, an accountant may have moved a donor’s money between two accounts, and Donald felt the full emotional weight of opening a school for orphans.

I’d like to try this at home. The next time my husband buys groceries, I’ll stand beside the refrigerator and announce that, because of my profound belief in dinner, I have personally committed substantial resources to cheese. Questions about whose debit card was used will only distract from my leadership during this difficult period for the cheddar.

Trump’s announcement begins with his belief in Republican “Policies and Principles,” which is an ambitious opening for a paragraph that immediately loses track of the distinction between “I paid” and “money exists near me.”

He says more than $300 million has already gone toward advertising, voter contact, rallies, arenas, telerallies, get-out-the-vote programs, “Election Integrity,” and more. Reuters says it has not independently verified his spending figures.

The list is magnificent. Rallies, the buildings containing the rallies, and rallies conducted over the telephone. At some point the campaign will invent a rally that attends another rally so Donald can thank both of them for coming.

Imagine receiving a fundraising appeal to help the president call you and explain how generously he has funded the call. You donated twenty dollars, and now a recorded billionaire is interrupting your dinner to tell you about his sacrifice. By the time you get back to the table, the children have eaten your bread.

Then, halfway through this tribute to his own generosity, France enters the room. Trump says he’s acting “especially after witnessing what is taking place in France, and other locations throughout Europe.”

I had to read that twice, because I initially failed to understand how a French disturbance had become an invoice for American campaign advertising. Apparently something happens in Lyon, and a Republican in Pennsylvania needs another thirty-second spot with a frightened woman standing beside a fence.

The French protests began over school conditions, teacher shortages, and underfunded public services, expanding into broader anger about living costs before demonstrations descended into rioting and looting.

Trump has blamed immigrants. French authorities and police have not established that connection. But imagine how awkward the campaign ad would be if it acknowledged the actual grievances.

Ominous music. A classroom.

“These children say they need more teachers.”

Cut to Republican candidate, visibly sweating.

“We must stop this before Americans get ideas.”

A child asks whether the school roof can be repaired, and three thousand miles away a consultant begins searching for footage of a burning car.

The useful thing about France is that most American viewers can’t personally pop over and ask what happened. You can show them flames, say “Democrats,” and finish the advertisement before anyone has translated the placard about education funding.

A French teenager could hold up a sign reading WE WOULD LIKE A FUNCTIONING TOILET, and by supper an American political ad would have him leading an international movement to abolish your grandmother. Donald is here to prevent that, at tremendous expense to whichever people supplied the tremendous expense.

And the spending is substantial. AP reports that his super PAC and aligned groups have spent $191 million on advertising, with another $65 million booked through Election Day. Those advertising figures do not verify his larger total, but they do confirm that America is about to have a very expensive television headache.

For all that money, we might reasonably expect an explanation of how Republicans intend to make life better. Instead, we’re being offered a tour of foreign emergencies narrated by a man accepting applause for a bank transfer.

There is something wonderfully revealing about the whole performance. Wealthy donors supply the money, frightened voters supply the attention, and Donald supplies the pronoun.

“I.”

The smallest contribution in the transaction, somehow printed in the largest font.

I do hope the donors receive a thank-you card. It would be rude to let them spend hundreds of millions of dollars without acknowledging their generosity. Perhaps Donald could sign it.

“To Donald: None of this would have been possible without me.”