Former US President Donald Trump speaks to the media at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport after surrendering at the Fulton County jail on August 24, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images
For former President Donald Trumpone picture is worth… more than $7 million.
Trump’s campaign says he has raised $7.1 million since Thursday when he raised booked into the Fulton County Jail in Georgia on the charges he illegally prepared overthrow the 2020 election in the state and became the first former president in US history to have a mug shot was taken.
Spokesman Steven Cheung said that, on Friday alone, the campaign brought in $4.18 million — its highest gross of the day to date.
The record haul underscores how Trump’s legal woes have turned his campaign fundraising favor, even his political operations has spent tens of millions in his defense. The mounting legal charges have also failed to dent Trump’s standing in the Republican presidential primary, where the former president now routinely beats his rivals by 30 to 50 points in the polls.
While Trump described his appearance Thursday as a “terrible experience” and said posing for the historic mug shot was “not a comfortable feeling,” his campaign immediately took its clout in recruiting funds.
Even before he flew home to New Jersey, his campaign was using it for fundraisers with supporters. Trump has reinforced that message both on his Truth Social site and by returns to X, the site formerly known as Twitterfor the first time in two and a half years to share the photo and direct supporters to a fundraising page.
Within hours, the campaign also released a new merchandise line featuring the image that started on t-shirts and now includes beer Koozies, bumper stickers, a signed poster, bumper stickers and mug shot mugs.
Cheung said contributions from those who bought merchandise or donated without prompting increased, especially after Trump’s tweet.
The new contributions, he said, have helped push the campaign’s fundraising total over the past three weeks to near $20 million. Trump in early August was indicted in Washington on felony charges in relation to his efforts to reverse the results of the 2020 election in dealing with violent disorder of his supporters in the US Capitol.
At the same time, Trump’s political operation is burning in the tens of millions of dollars to lawyers as he fights the cases four separate jurisdictions. Recent campaign finance filings show that, while Trump raised more than $53 million in the first half of 2023 — a period in which his first two criminal indictments became a rallying cry that boosted his fundraising — his political committees paid at least $59.2 million to more than 100 lawyers and law firms since January 2021.
