前总统唐纳德·特朗普和共和党全国委员会目前正面临严重的财务劣势在大选斗争的早期阶段新的文件显示，反对总统乔·拜登和他的1亿美元战争基金。
但随着川普本月早些时候成为共和党2024年推定总统候选人，他和RNC正全力以赴弥补他们在筹款方面的落后——发起一项联合行动，并计划与共和党大捐赠者一起举办一场高额活动。
周三公布的拜登和特朗普竞选团队以及民主党和共和党各自的2月份财务文件显示，与特朗普相比，拜登筹集了更多资金，目前手头有多少资金可用于广告、人员配备和组织工作。
财务文件还详细说明了特朗普的法律法案在多大程度上侵蚀了他的一些盟友政治团体的现金流。
他面临88项刑事指控和多项民事诉讼——包括没收他资产的威胁与纽约一起民事欺诈案的4.64亿美元判决有关。
他否认各种案件中的所有不当行为，并对民事欺诈裁决提出上诉，只剩下几天时间来提供保证金以支付罚款。
进入3月份后，特朗普的总统竞选团队和RNC分别只有4，200万美元和1，100万美元的银行存款，约为拜登竞选团队和民主党全国委员会在最新提交的文件中联合报告的9，700多万美元手头现金的一半。
特朗普的竞选筹款在2月份大幅增加，这位前总统继续在共和党早期提名竞争中取得胜利，在佛罗里达州和南卡罗来纳州举行了成功的活动，上个月筹集了约1100万美元。
但到目前为止，在这个选举周期中，拜登竞选团队和民主党在能够共同筹集资金方面比共和党对手享有重大优势，因为民主党甚至在提名竞选之前就正式决定团结在拜登周围。
这使得他们不仅可以分享筹款资源，还可以接受超过80万美元的高额捐款。
文件显示，与2020年选举周期的同一时间点相比，特朗普竞选团队在本周期的支出要少得多，今年前两个月的支出仅为1700万美元，而竞选团队在上次总统选举中同期支出了近3000万美元。
根据财务文件，拜登竞选团队在今年头两个月的支出更少——1，200万美元——因为在共和党斗争结束时，总统基本上没有参加竞选活动。但是民主党全国委员会反而很活跃，在头两个月就花费了近3000万美元
筹款缺口可能很快就会弥合，特朗普现在作为共和党的正式推定提名人正在向共和党筹款。
然而，他的一个新筹款工具的安排方式表明，一个优先事项也是将资金投入一个政治行动委员会，该委员会支付了他正在进行的法律账单的很大一部分。
特朗普团队最近与共和党成立了两个新的联合筹款委员会:一个被称为“特朗普47委员会”，该委员会与他领导的拯救美国政治行动委员会、RNC和40个州共和党委员会一起筹款，可以接受每位捐赠者超过80万美元的捐款;另一个名为“特朗普全国委员会JFC”，可能将专注于小额联合筹款。
根据美国广播公司新闻频道(ABC News)获得的一份筹款邀请函，特朗普47委员会(Trump 47 Committee)下个月将在佛罗里达州棕榈滩举办一场每张票81.46万美元的大型筹款活动，由亿万富翁约翰·保尔森主持，包括几名前大使和特朗普政府官员，如前小企业管理员琳达·麦克马洪(Linda McMahon)和前商务部长威尔伯·罗斯(Wilbur Ross)以及纽约喷气机队(New York Jets)老板伍迪·
邀请函显示，其他主要共同主持人包括前特朗普竞选财务主席托德·里基茨、能源大亨哈罗德·哈姆、航空业高管罗伯特·毕格罗、对冲基金经理罗伯特·默瑟及其女儿丽贝卡·默瑟和赌场大亨菲尔·鲁芬。
值得注意的是，在法律法案的挤压下，新的特朗普47委员会正在优先考虑特朗普的拯救美国政治行动委员会-该委员会在过去几年中为特朗普的法律法案支付了数千万美元，但无法使用其资金支持特朗普的连任竞选，因为它是作为他的领导政治行动委员会设立的。
根据联合筹款委员会主办的一场筹款活动的邀请函，在捐款发放顺序方面，“拯救美国”领先于RNC和40个州党委等组织。
例如，邀请函的细则显示，如果委员会通过了假设的15，000美元，捐款人的第一笔6，600美元(或政治行动委员会的10，000美元)将捐给特朗普竞选团队，接下来的5，000美元将捐给“拯救美国”，然后这些资金才会捐给共和党委员会。
这一联合筹款委员会成立之前，特朗普的“拯救美国政治行动委员会”仅在今年前两个月就烧光了850多万美元的法律账单，其中包括2月份的560万美元。根据备案文件，这位前总统继续在全国各地进行刑事案件和民事审判。
财务文件显示，今年迄今为止，法律账单占Save America总支出的近80%。拯救美国的备案文件显示，PAC几乎完全依赖于拯救美国最初向支持特朗普的超级PAC Make America Great Again Inc .返还的数千万美元资金，而该公司报告称自己只筹集了两千美元。
在过去的几个月里，“拯救美国”组织依靠MAGA Inc .返还的捐款作为资金来源，这给后者带来了一定的压力，该组织旨在领导竞选活动之外支持特朗普的广告活动，并推动他的连任竞选。
MAGA Inc .为拯救美国而提供的super PAC资金预计将在一系列交易后很快枯竭:拯救美国最初在2022年向MAGA Inc .转移了6000万美元，但后者现在已将其中5000多万美元返还给了拯救美国。
特朗普新的联合筹款行动为拯救美国行动委员会提供了新的未来支持来源
与此同时，申报文件显示，MAGA Inc .今年继续从特朗普的富裕支持者那里获得数千万美元的资金，但截至2月底，该公司手头的现金为2，550万美元，不到super PAC进入2023年的一半。
Trump faces major financial disadvantage against Biden as legal bills eat into allies' cash: Filings
Former President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee are, right now, facing a serious financial disadvantagein the early stages of the general election fightagainst President Joe Biden and his $100 million war chest, new filings show.
But with Trump becoming his party's 2024 presumptive presidential nominee earlier this month, he and the RNC are full steam ahead to make up for their fundraising lag -- launching a joint operation and planning a high-dollar event with GOP megadonors.
February financial filings for the Biden and Trump campaigns and respective Democratic and Republican parties, released on Wednesday, illustrate how much more money Biden has raised and currently has on hand compared to Trump, funds that can be used toward advertising, staffing and organizing.
Financial filings also detail the extent to which Trump's legal bills have eaten into the cash flow of some of his allied political groups.
He faces 88 criminal charges and multiple civil issues -- includingthe threat of seizure of his assetsrelated to a $464 million judgment in a New York civil fraud case.
He denies all wrongdoing across the various cases and is appealing the civil fraud ruling, with just days left to provide a bond to cover that penalty.
Entering March, Trump's presidential campaign and the RNC only had $42 million and $11 million respectively in the bank, about half of the more than $97 million the Biden campaign and the DNC jointly reported having as cash on hand in their latest filings.
Trump's campaign fundraising ramped up in February as the former president continued to secure victories in early GOP nominating contests, holding successful events in Florida and South Carolina and bringing in roughly $11 million last month.
But so far this election cycle, the Biden campaign and the Democratic Party have enjoyed a major advantage over their Republican counterparts of being able to raise money together, because Democrats formally decided to rally around Biden even before the nominating race.
That allowed them to not only share fundraising resources but also to accept high-dollar donations north of $800,000.
Filings show that the Trump campaign, in turn, has been spending much less so far this cycle compared to the same point in the 2020 election cycle, reporting expenditures of just $17 million in the first two months of this year compared to nearly $30 million that the campaign spent during the same period in the last presidential election.
The Biden campaign spent even less in the first two months of this year -- $12 million -- as the president mostly stayed away from the campaign trail while the GOP fight played out, according to the financial filings. But the DNC was active instead, spending nearly $30 million in the first two months
The fundraising gap could soon close, with Trump now raising money with the Republican Party as their official presumptive nominee.
However, the way one of his new fundraising vehicles is arranged suggests a priority is also funneling money into a political action committee that has paid a significant portion of his ongoing legal bills.
Trump's team recently set up two new joint fundraising committees with the GOP: one dubbed "Trump 47 Committee," which raises money with his Save America leadership PAC, the RNC and 40 state GOP committees and can accept more than $800,000 per donor; and another named "Trump National Committee JFC," which is likely going to focus on smaller-dollar joint fundraising.
The Trump 47 Committee is already throwing a major $814,600-per-ticket fundraiser in Palm Beach, Florida, next month, hosted by billionaire John Paulson and featuring dozens of major Republican names, including several former ambassadors and Trump administration officials like former Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon and former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross as well as New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, according to an invitation to the fundraiser that was obtained by ABC News.
Other major co-hosts include a former Trump campaign finance chair, Todd Ricketts, and energy mogul Harold Hamm, aerospace executive Robert Bigelow, hedge fund manager Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah Mercer and casino tycoon Phil Ruffin, the invitation shows.
Notably, amid the crush of legal bills, the new Trump 47 Committee is prioritizing Trump's Save America PAC -- which has footed tens of millions of dollars in Trump's legal bills over the last few years and is unable to use its money in support of Trump's reelection campaign because it's set up as his leadership PAC.
According to an invitation for a fundraiser hosted by the joint fundraising committee, Save America is ahead of groups like the RNC and the 40 state party committees when it comes to the order for how donations are disbursed.
For example, the invitation's fine print shows that if a hypothetical $15,000 comes through the committee, the first $6,600 from the donor (or $10,000 from a PAC) goes to the Trump campaign and the next $5,000 goes to Save America -- before any of the funds would go to the Republican Party committees.
This joint fundraising committee setup comes on the heels of Trump's Save America PAC burning through more than $8.5 million on legal bills just in the first two months of this year -- including $5.6 million in February -- as the former president continues to battle his criminal cases and civil trials across the country, per filings.
Legal bills make up nearly 80% of Save America's total expenditures so far this year, according to financial filings. The PAC has relied almost entirely on tens of millions of dollars in returned money that Save America initially gave to pro-Trump super PAC Make America Great Again Inc., while reporting only a couple thousand dollars raised itself, Save America's filings show.
In the past few months, Save America relying on those returned contributions from MAGA Inc. for its source of funding has put something of a strain on the latter group, which was designed to spearhead a pro-Trump ad campaign operation outside of the campaign and to boost his reelection bid.
The super PAC money from MAGA Inc. to Save America is expected to dry up soon following a series of exchanges: Save America initially transferred $60 million to MAGA Inc. in 2022, but the latter group has now returned more than $50 million of those contributions back to Save America.
Trump's new joint fundraising operation offers Save America PAC a fresh source of future support
MAGA Inc., meanwhile, continues to rake in tens of millions of dollars from Trump's wealthy supporters this year, filings show, but as of the end of February had $25.5 million in cash on hand -- less than half of what the super PAC had entering 2023.
