On the morning of Saturday, Feb. 28, Donald Trump launched a war in Iran. Later that same day, the Republican president offered a peek into his priorities: He capped the first day of combat operations by attending a glitzy fundraiser at his glorified country club, hosted by a super PAC aligned with his political operation.
That prescheduled event, however, was not directly related to the war; it just coincided with the start of the military offensive. Almost two weeks later, however, war-related Republican fundraising began in earnest. MS NOW reported:
President Donald Trump’s political action committee this week sent a fundraising email promising donors ‘private national security briefings’ by the president himself and featuring a photo from the dignified transfer for U.S. service members killed in Kuwait.
Meidas Touch Network published the entirety of the fundraising appeal on Thursday, which was sent to prospective donors as an “announcement from Donald J. Trump.” The message, filled with links to a donation page, claims that the president is “opening up spots on the National Security Briefing Membership” — some kind of undefined entity, which almost certainly does not exist.
“As a National Security Briefing Member, you’ll receive my private national security briefings, unfiltered updates on the threats facing America. The straight truth on border invasions, foreign adversaries, deep state sabotage, and every danger the fake news hides,” the Never Surrender fundraising letter continued. “You’ll get the inside scoop DIRECT from me, President Trump, the leader who’s rebuilt the greatest military in history, and put America First like no one else.”
The dubious text, which seemed to pitch special access in exchange for political contributions, wasn’t the only problem: The same appeal presented donors with an image of Trump and a flag-draped coffin during a recent dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base (which was already controversial because the president wore a baseball cap to the ceremony, which he didn’t take off despite American norms and customs).
As NOTUS reported, one day earlier the Trump National Committee JFC, a different Trump-affiliated committee, sent its own Iran-themed message, “asking everyone who approves of Operation Epic Fury to rally behind me with incredible messages of support” — and a donation.
The efforts did not go unnoticed on Capitol Hill. The Democratic members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, for example, issued a statement saying that Trump “never misses a chance to make a quick buck off the backs of the American people, even if it means turning a dignified transfer of fallen service members into a fund-raising opportunity. Deeply shameful.”
Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico called the fundraising “disgusting,” while Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii described the practice as “totally inappropriate.”
On Sunday night, after the latest in a series of weekend trips to Mar-a-Lago, a reporter asked Trump about the propriety of such efforts.
The Republican’s initial defense was that he was on hand for the dignified transfer, “unlike a lot of other people.” That didn’t make a lot of sense: Presidents don’t get credit for simply showing up at such a ceremony; there was no reason for unnamed “other people” to be there; and none of this had anything to do with the underlying question.
Pressed further, Trump defended the fundraising practice by saying, “There’s nobody that’s better to the military than me.”
Putting aside the inconvenient fact that Trump’s record related to military service members is actually quite atrocious, there’s still a disconnect between the defense and the allegation. To hear the president tell it, he’s been good to the armed forces, so he’s entitled to exploit a flag-draped coffin when begging for cash.
Basic human decency suggests otherwise.
