Trump charged hundreds of thousands of dollars last year for his campaign to use a virtually empty room at Trump Tower

Trump is charging a lot of money for the 14th floor of Trump Tower.

(Image credit: BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP/Getty Images)

published 8 March 2018

President Trump's re-election campaign spent over half a million dollars in 2017 to rent out space on the 14th floor of Trump Tower, despite the fact that only five people appear to be on the payroll, HuffPost reports. "There's nobody there. It's like two guys," said a Republican consultant. "There is no campaign. There is no operation. It's just a joke."

In 2015 and the spring of 2016, when Trump was primarily self-funding his campaign, the rent for the Trump Tower offices was $35,458 a month. By July 2016, when Trump started accepting donations, that price almost quintupled to $169,758 a month, despite the number of staff staying relatively consistent.

Last year, Trump spent $473,371 of donors' money at Trump Tower, although HuffPost notes that "about $150,000 of that was likely for the month immediately after his election, when the campaign was occupying more space in the building." In total, the campaign spent $774,163 at Trump-branded businesses in 2017. The Republican National Committee, which took over paying monthly rental of the Trump Tower office in autumn for $37,542 a month, spent a total of $150,169 at Trump businesses by the year's end.

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.

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