By Shane Goldmacher, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan
As Donald Trump seeks a return to the White House, he has come a long way from his 2016 campaign pitch that he was so rich, he was incorruptible. Back then, he mocked the GOP’s donor-lobbyist class and boasted in his announcement speech, “I don’t need anybody’s money.”
Today, Trump is looking everywhere for cash: asking small donors online, pressing fellow billionaires over private meals in Trump Tower and lobbying for donations from industries regulated by the government.
As he does so, he is sometimes making overt promises about what he will do once he’s in office, a level of explicitness toward individual industries and a handful of billionaires that has rarely been seen in modern presidential politics.
In some cases, Trump has sought to shake loose cash from industries like oil and energy that have long aligned with his deregulation agenda. In others, Trump has flipped his positions, such as on crypto.
“Former President Trump has a ‘For Sale’ sign around his neck and appears to be willing to sell basically any policy in exchange for campaign contributions,” said Dennis Kelleher, president of Better Markets, a nonprofit that seeks stronger regulation of financial markets.
In a statement, Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokesperson, said, “President Trump only takes his cues on policy from one group of people: the American people.”
In 2016, Trump vowed to “drain the swamp.” As president, he did no such thing. He hired top executives from Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs and from the fossil fuel and pharmaceutical industries. He ended the practice of making public White House visitor logs. His family operated a for-profit hotel blocks from the White House that became a den of lobbying activity and a must-stay place for those looking to curry favor. People who paid pricey membership dues to join his private club at Mar-a-Lago had easy access to Trump, often taking the opportunity to pitch their pet interests.
“Trump was the first transactional president,” said Scott Reed, a longtime Republican consultant and former top political strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “He’s now taken it to a new level.”
Crypto
There are few industries Trump has done more to court than the crypto world. And there is no industry for which his policy reversal has been more headturning.
Five months after leaving office, in June 2021, Trump said cryptocurrencies should be regulated into near-oblivion. “I don’t think we should have all of the bitcoins of the world out there,” Trump said. “I think they should regulate them very, very high.”
Three years and plenty of campaign cash later, the former president sounds a lot like a budding cryptocurrency entrepreneur. That’s because he is one.
Trump’s sons have embarked on a cryptocurrency endeavor that his advisers anticipate could prove lucrative.
In June, Trump met at Mar-a-Lago with a group of bitcoin miners. Within hours, he posted about bitcoin mining and how he wanted “all the remaining Bitcoin to be MADE IN THE USA!!!” He stopped by a different crypto event at Mar-a-Lago the month before and shook hands with one crypto executive, Ryan Selkis, who posted a photo with the caption: “$100 million+ from the crypto community. Consider it done, Mr. President.” Selkis soon gave $50,000.
The $100 million figure overstates the disclosed crypto-industry investment in Trump. But industry leaders have given him significant support amid concerns they have about the Biden administration’s strict regulation attempts. Trump’s main fundraising committee has reported receiving more than $8.2 million in cryptocurrency donations through September, his campaign said. Millions more have been given in actual dollars. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, co-founders of the crypto platform Gemini, each gave more than $1.25 million to Trump and supportive super political action committees.
In July, Trump appeared at a crypto industry conference and promised to fire Gary Gensler, the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, on his first day — a top crypto priority. It is unclear whether the president would have that authority, but Trump has made it clear he intends to try to bring independent agencies under direct presidential control.
Big tobacco and marijuana
Trump has personally long opposed smoking. The tobacco industry, however, is wagering heavily on him in 2024.
A subsidiary of the tobacco giant Reynolds American is the largest corporate contributor to Trump’s main super PAC. The business, RAI Services Co., has contributed $8.5 million so far.
The donations come as cigarette makers are seeking to fight off a proposed ban on menthol cigarettes that has been advanced — and then paused — by the Biden administration.
Brian Ballard, a lobbyist and fundraiser for Trump who himself has given $260,000 this year, heads a lobbying firm that has represented Reynolds for years. Executives for Reynolds American and Ballard have met several times with Trump, according to two people familiar with the meetings. They discussed policies in a second potential Trump term.
Ballard declined to comment. Reynolds American did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump has not yet staked out a public position on the menthol ban. He has, however, taken a proactive and new position on marijuana.
In 2015, he said legalizing it was “bad” and that “I feel strongly about that.” But this year, there is a major legalization measure on the ballot in Florida, and Trump has been lobbied to support it.
Over the summer, Trump met privately with Kim Rivers, the CEO of Trulieve, the cannabis company behind the Florida measure, according to people briefed on the meeting.
“It is time to end needless arrests and incarcerations of adults for small amounts of marijuana for personal use,” he later wrote in a social media statement, announcing he would vote for the Florida measure.
Elon Musk
In April 2023, when Elon Musk was considering supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, the former president criticized the world’s richest man for seeking favors from the federal government.
“Elon is just trying to make friends with the absolutely horrible Biden Administration because of all the government subsidies he gets, and all the permits he needs,” Trump posted on his social media website, Truth Social.
A year and a half later, Musk is leading an effort to elect Trump that has no parallel in American history.
He is steering a super PAC that he has seeded with $118 million of his own money. He is relentlessly promoting Trump’s candidacy on X, the social platform he owns. And he has campaigned for Trump in Pennsylvania, offering $1 million payouts to voters who sign his petitions.
Trump has responded in kind. Far from being concerned that Musk is seeking favors as a major contractor with the federal government, Trump has promised that if he’s elected, he will appoint Musk to run an audit of the government to root out waste, fraud and abuse. The move would create conflicts of interest on a scale unseen in recent memory, with Musk potentially exercising power over parts of the government that pour billions of dollars into his businesses.
Oil and gas
In contrast to the crypto industry, Trump has for a long time been aligned with much of the oil, gas and energy industry. He has derided climate change as a “hoax,” and since 2016, Trump has aggressively opposed Democrats’ environmental regulations, promoting a deregulatory agenda as president that delighted many fossil fuel executives.
Trump has received millions of dollars in donations from top energy executives, including $10 million across two pro-Trump super PACs from Kelcy Warren, the CEO of Energy Transfer. Joseph Craft III, who leads a major coal company, and his wife, Kelly, a former Trump ambassador, have given nearly $3 million to Trump, the party and a super PAC.
One evening in April, Trump hosted an “energy roundtable” at Mar-a-Lago of industry executives and lobbyists. There, he made an audacious request: The oil and gas industries would do so well under a Trump president that the people in the room should donate $1 billion to his presidential campaign.
“It’s enticement and coercion — the carrot and the stick,” said Walter Shaub, a former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. “He has been making clear through his actions that any industries that support him stand to be rewarded, and any that oppose him stand to be punished.”
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