Morning Wire - Lara Trump Talks Fundraising, Election Integrity & RFK Jr. | 4.14.24

Episode Date: April 14, 2024

Lara Trump, newly appointed co-chair of the RNC and daughter-in-law of Donald Trump, discusses the unprecedented $50 million fundraising haul, the diverse base of Trump supporters, and the RNC's efforts to ensure election integrity. Get the facts first on Morning Wire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We're just seven months out from the presidential election, and both campaigns have racked up some historic numbers on the fundraising trail. Trump's campaign brought in a jaw-dropping $50 million at just one event last weekend. And the Republican National Committee says it's gaining some major momentum as the race heats up. In this episode, we sit down with the RNC's new co-chair Laura Trump, the daughter-in-law of Donald Trump, to discuss the state of the race in her organization's plan to get Trump back into the Oval Office. I'm Daily. Wire, editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's April 14th, and this is a Sunday edition of Morning Wire.

Joining us now to discuss the New Look RNC and the current state of the presidential race is Laura Trump, the newly appointed co-chair of the organization. Laura, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks so much for having me. So let's start with some big news from the Trump campaign last week. It says it raised a record-setting $50.5 million at the inaugural leadership dinner in Palm Beach. Tell us about that event. Yeah.

Well, what's amazing is that prior to this event, the largest single event fundraiser in the history of politics was the one that everybody saw at Radio City Music Hall for Joe Biden. And of course, he needed Barack Obama. He needed Bill Clinton. He needed celebrities like Lizzo, Anna Wintour, and Stephen Colbert to come. And at that event, he raised $26 million. A little over a week later, we had our first major fundraiser. event of this campaign cycle for Donald Trump, and we blew them out of the water. We nearly doubled that number and raised, as you just said, 50.5 million dollars. And we only needed one president to do that.

We needed the president, the person who's going to save this country, my father-in-law, Donald J. Trump. And I think, you know, what was interesting to me, John, about that specific event is that there were so many people who had never contributed at a level like that before, or people who had never contributed at a level like that before, or people who had maybe straight away and said, you know what, I don't know, maybe I'm going to support another candidate. They came back and they're back in the fold because they understand the importance of this election. They understand we can leave nothing to chance. And they want to see Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States. So we were incredibly proud of that number. You know, in addition to that number, I just want to

make sure people know that since Donald Trump became the presumptive nominee, we have raised between the RNC and the Trump campaign, $100 million in that time. Our average donation is $54. So that tells you all you need to know. The people of this country are behind Donald Trump. They also want to see him back in that White House. And I can assure you from the RNC, we're doing everything every day to ensure that that indeed happens.

Yeah, you know, I actually wanted to ask you about the people that support Trump. That came up from the Biden camp. They painted the event from last week. a gathering of out-of-touch billionaires who don't represent the majority of American voters. The word racist was even used. Who are Trump's supporters and voters? Well, I'll tell you at that event last Saturday, these were, you know, titans of industry and people who many of them have made their livelihoods as the American dream. You know, they really have done so much to bolster this country and to employ many people in this country. And they

deeply care about the future of America. The Trump voter is everyone. It's everyone who cares about this country. Patriots who are proud to be Americans, people who love our military and our law enforcement, you know, people who, quite frankly, believe in common sense and believe that we the people are the ones who should be running this country, not the government. We should be the one's in charge of our lives and not the government. And I think what's been interesting with a man like Donald Trump is starting back in 2015 when he first announced he was running for president, people said, how can this billionaire from New York connect with the average voter in this country? And yet an incredible thing happened with Donald Trump and only Donald Trump. And it's that he

changed the face of the Republican Party. This is a wide open tent. We are a party for anyone who loves freedom, who loves our constitution, who loves their religion, and wants to freely practice it in America. We are a party for everyone. And I think he blew the doors off of what was once known as the Republican Party. He created a movement, the Make America Great Again movement. And, you know, to see those comments from Joe Biden, from the White House, from his team there, not surprising. That's all they have. You know, they can only name call and they can only call people racist. That's all they have left right now because they don't have any great policies that have actually benefited the American people. People can't look around right now and say,

man, my life is a lot better now because Joe Biden's been in office. In fact, for every economic standing in this country for anyone, no matter who you are or where you live, your life likely has gotten a lot harder since Joe Biden became president. Things are more expensive. Our country is destabilized. The world is destabilized. We have a wide open border. People don't feel safe and secure anymore in this country. And it's because of that, that that's the only thing the Biden campaign has at this point because they have zero accomplishments to which they can point. Now, you noted that the Trump campaign and the R&C have raised $100 million in recent months. The Biden campaign reportedly has $192 million on hand. How can Republicans compete against that

financial gap? Yeah, well, listen, we're working on it every day. We're doing, as much fundraising as we can. Small dollar and high dollar fundraising at the RNC. But look, you think back to 2016, and I think Hillary Clinton outspent the Trump campaign by a measure of like five to one. And ultimately, it came down to grassroots. It came down to the people of this country rallying behind a man who they believed in, a man who promised change.

And obviously, in his first term as president, delivered that change. But I guess my point is that having money is great because it allows. us to do the things around this country we need. It allows us to further a lot of these lawsuits that we have. We have 81 lawsuits right now from the RNC in order to make sure that it is harder to cheat and easier to vote around this country. We want to rectify a lot of the illegally changed voting laws in the states under the guise of COVID, of course, in 2020. And we want to ensure election integrity. So we're working on that every single day. And it does costs money to do those things. It costs money to deploy people out to knock doors. It costs

money to advertise. So it's great. But I think ultimately what it's going to come down to is us being effective in messaging to people and ensuring that people can compare two different presidents. And that really is the unique opportunity that we have right now in America. In modern history, we've never had the chance to compare two presidencies side by side. And right now, we can do that. Donald Trump was president for four years. Joe Biden has been president for just over three years. And you can very easily make the contrast between these two men. So I think a lot of our job will come down to, of course, fundraising as much as we can,

but really making that comparison, reminding people how life was when Donald Trump was president, how life is now that Joe Biden is president, how much easier things were and how much better off people felt under a Trump presidency versus a Biden presidency. And so we are always going to be fundraising. We're always going to be striving to raise more money because it allows us to do more. But ultimately, I think it will come down to making that comparison between these two men and their presidencies and reminding people how much better things were with Donald Trump in there. Now, obviously, the two front runners are getting most of the headlines.

But RFK Jr. has really made a splash in recent months. And we've seen reports that the Democrats are particularly worried about him. he does have some political stances that align with Republicans. Is he a bigger threat to Biden or to Trump? Oh, I think most certainly RFK Jr. is a much bigger threat to the Democrats. I mean, he started out, you know, sort of in that vein. And I think whenever you see the Biden campaign panicking over a third-party candidate, like RFK Jr., you know that they are very worried.

And, you know, you look at the polling when it comes to Trump, and Biden, and you look at spaces and big voting blocks that are very important to the Democrats, like the black vote. In 2020, Donald Trump got 8% of the black vote. Right now, he's polling at 23% with black voters. With Hispanic voters, 40% would vote for Biden today. 46% would vote for Trump today. That is a very scary prospect to the Democrats. So when they see polling going in the wrong way with the Republican candidate, and then you bring in this third party individual, I think, you are very clearly seeing worry over there at the Biden headquarters. It is not something that we are concerned about in the least. We have a very strong base of voters. And I think what you're

seeing is that people are happily coming over to vote for Donald Trump right now because, as I just mentioned, people are smart enough to remember the four years of him in office. Now, to turn the discussion a little in your direction, do you feel pressure to deliver? You're not just the R&C co-chair. You're the daughter-in-law of the former. or president. How are you feeling taking on this new position? Yeah, no, no pressure here. I'll only be kicked out of the family if we don't win. No, I'm just kidding. Look, I take this job incredibly seriously. I'm honored to be the co-chair of the RNC. I can assure you, John, this was never something a year ago I would have even dreamed about doing. And yet here I am. And I'm here because I think, you know,

this is the best use of my time, my energy. This is where my father-in-law said, you can be such a for us as Republicans, and I'm honored to do it. So yes, of course I feel pressure. Look, my father-in-law tasked me in 2016 with winning my home state of North Carolina. And if you remember back then, Hillary Clinton said North Carolina would be her firewall. So I started back then with North Carolina. We won North Carolina in 2016. We won it again in 2020. I can assure you he's counting on me to win it in 2024. The good news is the polling is in our direction right now and looking great in the state of North Carolina. But yes, as a whole, of course, I feel immense pressure.

And it's not just pressure from my family. Of course, this is my family. But I feel pressure for the future of this country. Because I think if we're all being honest, you look around at what has happened in three years. And I do not believe that we could survive another term of Joe Biden as president and Democrats in charge of this country. Whether it's the communist tactics

that they've employed against their number one political, opponent, Donald Trump. If we allow those things to be successful, what kind of a country are we at this point? You look at the way that our wide open southern border has created a problem in every single state, not just the border states right now. We seem to be on the verge of World War III. If you look around the world right now, we are in such a weakened position as a country. Things are harder for people. And so I feel incredible pressure because I want to see this election go the right way. I want to see this country come back. I have two young children. They're four and six years old. I want my kids to be able to grow up in the same America that I got

to grow up in. And so obviously it's a personal thing as it is my family. But for the entire country and for the future of this country, yes, I'm working hard every day to ensure a victory come November 5th. One of the things you mentioned are the lawsuits that the RNC are continuing under your leadership. The RNC won a major decision in Pennsylvania regarding mail-in ballots. What happened there? Is that a truly significant decision? Yeah, absolutely. Yes. It's, well, it's incredibly significant. You know, you see, we have a tax right now across the country by the Democrats. And, you know, it started in 2020, again, under the guise of COVID, that we needed to change a lot of the election laws in certain states. One of the things that they tried to do recently, the Democrats in the state of Pennsylvania,

is they wanted to get rid of requiring dating of mail-in ballots. So we fought against that and we won. I mean, that's a fundamental and basic safeguard of our mail-in voting. We need to know when someone actually signed a ballot and that they indeed signed it. And the good news is now that we have set this precedent, this legal precedent, we can apply that to similar attacks across the country in different states. It has set this legal precedent, and I think it will help us greatly as we undertake many more of these lawsuits. As I said, we have 81 out right now across the country.

And so we're fighting tooth and nail. We're doing everything we possibly can to ensure fairness and transparency in this election. You look back at 2020, John. I mean, I think if you asked over half the country, people would say, something was off in 2020. And we cannot exist in a country like that. So we're highly focused on election integrity. And this wins specifically in Pennsylvania that required the dating of mail-in ballots is a huge victory. And I can assure you you will see more of that out of the RNC.

Final question. How will Trump's legal fees impact the finances of the campaign? Your co-chair Michael Watley told us the RNC would not direct any money to his legal fees. Is that still true? That is still true. From the R&C, we are not paying legal fees for Donald Trump. We do have a joint fundraising committee and a very small percentage of the money raised if you donate to the joint fundraising committee does go to legal fees.

People have the opportunity to opt out of that very easily if that's something that they don't want to contribute to. But I think the interesting thing is I get messages from people, emails from people, calls from people all day to say, how can we control? to paying for Donald Trump's legal fees because I think people understand when it comes to these egregious things that we've seen the Department of Justice do under Joe Biden towards Donald Trump truly weaponizing this system against a political opponent, people say, wow, it's Donald Trump today. And if this is a guy who can get the best legal team money can buy, think about

what they could do to the average person out there. It is so much bigger than Donald Trump. It happens to be Donald Trump who is under attack right now, but I think people want to contribute because they want to fight against this. They don't want to see a communist attack against a man like Donald Trump succeed in the United States of America. And so it's funny because this is a question that I get a lot, but people really are enthusiastic about letting him know they support him, they are behind him, whether that's monetarily, whether it's verbally or whether it's going out to vote for him as soon as early voting. voting starts in your state. People want to do it. They want to show support for this man,

because I think they believe, as I do, Donald Trump is the only way we save our country. We return the country back to We the People. He is the only option as we head towards this election season. And so I think you're going to see numbers. John, I believe like you've never seen before in terms of voter turnout for Donald Trump come this election. Yeah, I think we're going to see a lot of things we've never seen before just so far already in this election. cycle. Laura, thank you so much for joining us today. You got it. Thanks so much for having me. That was R&C coach here, Laura Trump, and this has been a Sunday edition of Morning Wire.