Donald Trump's 'fresh thinking' on display in unusual campaign spending

Donald Trump is spending a lot of his campaign money on himself
(Image credit: Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

Donald Trump spent all last fall and much of the winter defying the conventional wisdom about presidential campaigns, and he's apparently hoping to ride his unorthodox campaign choices all the way to victory in the November election, according to Federal Election Commission filings examined by The Wall Street Journal. Half of his campaign's 10 highest-paid consultants have never worked for another presidential campaign, for example, versus just one of Hillary Clinton's top 10 consultants.

"Trump wants people with fire in the belly," not necessarily experience, political consultant Stuart Jolly tells The Journal. "Loyalty is right up there at the top." Don McGahn, the Trump campaign's general counsel, added: "Fresh thinking is good." Despite earlier frugality, Trump is increasing his campaign spending, though he still isn't paying much for TV ads or field operations, outsourcing much of his get-out-the-vote effort to the Republican National Committee.

Notably, $15 million of the $90 million he spent through July — or about 17 percent of his total spending — was "paid to companies linked to himself or his children, or to reimburse their travel expenses," The Wall Street Journal said. That includes a total of $881,000 paid in rent for his campaign headquarters inside his own Trump Tower, a number that caught people's attention when the monthly rent jumped 500 percent as soon as campaign donors started footing the bill, even though Trump's staff didn't grow.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

A Trump spokesman told The Journal that Trump raised his own rent because he expanded the office space in anticipation of more campaign staff, and his general counsel, McGahn, said the use of campaign funds at Trump properties — including at least five Trump golf resorts, three Trump restaurants, and a wine company owned by son Eric Trump — complies with FEC rules and is only logical: "It makes perfect sense to me that you're going to use facilities that you know are of a certain quality." Read more about Trump's campaign spending at The Wall Street Journal.

Explore More
Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.