President Donald J. Trump is charging his guests and supporters literal millions to hob nob with him, in the form of one-on-one meetings and “candlelight” dinners, at his Mar-a-Lago luxury golf resort and it seems no one actually quite knows where that money is going, or what it’s being used for.
According to a ritzy invitation recently obtained by WIRED, regular guests are invited to spend a cool $1 million to reserve a seat at a candlelight dinner with Donald Trump at his luxury Florida golf resort, while the business leaders with far deeper pockets can drop a staggering $5 million to secure a personal, one-on-one meeting with the sitting President of the United States of America.
The invitation reads:
You are invited to a candlelight dinner featuring special guest President Donald J. Trump. Additional details provided upon RSVP. RSVPs will be accommodated on a first come, first serve basis. Space is very limited. $1,000,000 per person.”
The glitzy invitation featured a header for MAGA Inc., a reference to Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again, Inc. super PAC, and recipients of the invites were instructed to direct their RSVP to Meredith O’Rourke, the national finance director and senior advisor at Donald J. Trump for President 2024 campaign committee.
“Donald J. Trump is appearing at this event only as a featured speaker, and is not asking for funds or donations,” the invitation goes on to add, raising further questions as to where those millions are actually going.
On Donald’s official presidential schedule, the Mar-a-Lago event was listed as the “MAGA INC. Candlelight Finance Dinner.”
Again, it remains unclear as to where these millions of dollars are actually going, and no official statements from Trump or any of his people have been made to clear that question up.
However, one source with direct knowledge of the dinners claimed that it’s “all going to the library,” meaning Donald Trump’s official presidential library.
The Mar-a-Lago “candlelight dinners” were a popular schtick for Trump prior to his inauguration, but this is the first reporting of one of these events since he took office in January.
Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, said of the event, “I can’t recall a sitting president in the first weeks of his administration asking for millions of dollars in fundraising. The concern is less about fundraising and more about access and influence… People hoping to get favorable treatment view it in their interest to donate money to Trump.
“Part of what is worrying,” Moynihan added, “is the lack of ethical guardrails in the current Trump administration, where there doesn’t seem to be a clear line between Trump’s businesses and the presidency.”
Featured image via screen capture