Many of the multimillionaires and billionaires who fund Republican elections are fuming. The Trump Regime is a worse 3-ring circus than anyone ever expected-- even those who knew it would probably be a mess. Yesterday they were reading headlines about Jeff Sessions issuing new guidelines for going to war with the LGBT community again.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions instructed federal agencies and attorneys on Friday to protect religious liberty in a broad, yet vague, guidance memo that critics fear could give people of faith-- including government workers and contractors-- a loophole to ignore federal bans on discrimination against women and LGBT people.The guidance says the government cannot unduly burden people or certain businesses from practicing their faith, noting, “The free exercise of religion includes the right to act or abstain from action in accordance with one’s religious beliefs.”
For most high-rollers who were hoping to kill Obamacare for get their taxes lowered, war with women the gays isn't what they were looking for when they wrote their checks. Nor were they looking for an unending series of scandals that has had the government in a constant state of flux since... well, basically, since January when Trump moved into the White House. Are there any top level Trump Regime decision-makers who haven't been ripping off the taxpayers? Yesterday there were new reports about them wasting huge amounts of money on private jets and military planes. OK, Tom Price got thrown out on his ear, but he wasn't any worse than the rest of the crooks. The EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, is just the latest-- and probably not the last.Earlier this week, Politico's two top reporters, Alex Isenstadt and Gabriel Debenedetti reported that Republican heavy donors are sick and tired of all the bullshit pouring out of the White House and Congress-- and they're zipping up their wallets. Miss McConnell was in L.A. last week to beg for money from a couple dozen right-wing fat cats at the home of billionaire Robert Day, an oil money inheritor who serves as chairman of the Keck Foundation. He ran into a pissed off old coot, another oil money billionaire, Thomas Wachtell, who's funded every crooked GOP freak from Darrell Issa, Marco Rubio, Sharron Angle and Michele Bachmann and local monsters Mimi Walters, Issa, Kevin McCarthy, Steve Knight to McConnell himself. He's furious McConnell isn't getting anything down. He's stopped contributing to GOP Senate candidates and causes. "You’re never going to get a more sympathetic Republican than I am. But I’m sick and tired of nothing happening," he told McConnell in front of the other guests. Many wallets and purses are now closed.
The backlash is threatening to deprive Republicans of resources just as they're gearing up for the 2018 midterms. Party officials are so alarmed that North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who oversees fundraising for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told his colleagues at a recent conference meeting that donations had fallen off a cliff after the Obamacare flop. The committee’s haul plummeted to just $2 million in July and August, less than half of what it raised in June."When you’re in a business and you tell your stakeholders you’re going to build a building or something, you have to follow through," said Houston-based energy executive Dan Eberhart. "I can’t borrow money to build a building and then not follow through, which is what these guys are doing.” He said he's spoken to four Republican senators over the past month to express his displeasure, mostly over the party's failure to repeal Obamacare.Behind the scenes, the GOP has begun to try to smooth things over with its most important givers. On Monday, Trump met with the party’s most prominent donor, Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who has privately expressed frustration that the president hasn't moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. And in the wake of an establishment-backed candidate’s loss in Alabama, a top McConnell political lieutenant, Steven Law, held a series of frank discussions with key benefactors.Some of the donors are giving lawmakers an earful. Bruce Rastetter, an Iowa agribusiness mogul who has funded a long list of Republican elected officials, said he had informed his state’s two GOP senators, Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, that he would not donate to Republican senators “unless they pass new legislation or get new leadership.”In the world of campaign politics, big donors have long been known as gripers — an exclusive group accustomed to stroking and attention. But this year is different. Veteran fundraisers say they’re having an unusually hard time setting up meetings with major contributors, lining up checks and organizing events.One seasoned GOP fundraiser forwarded along a curt email from a sought-after donor. “The GOP leaders should know, no movement on remaining agenda: tax reform, infrastructure, deregulation, etc. means no funding from supporters like me,” it read. “No meetings, calls, contributions until we see progress.”The figures turning off the cash spigot range from mid-level donors to some of the most generous contributors whom the party has long relied upon. Among those who’ve been cool to outreach are venture capitalist John Childs, real estate developer Harlan Crow, and retail executive Les Wexner, according to fundraisers.All have funneled millions of dollars to the party over the years... “I think major donors are tired of writing checks to a do-nothing Congress,” said Roy Bailey, an influential, Dallas-based GOP bundler....Some exasperated givers are turning to Steve Bannon, Trump’s hard-charging former chief strategist and a McConnell nemesis, to vent. Bannon met with several contributors who were in Washington this week for an RNC gala and has eagerly stepped into the role of donor-whisperer. He is looking to establish his own finance network to fund an effort to unseat Senate Republican incumbents in 2018.The White House has been closely monitoring the donor unease, concerned that it could derail the party’s 2018 efforts. Last week, Marc Short, Trump’s director of legislative affairs who previously served as an operative for the Koch financial network, delivered a presentation for a group of influential conservative financiers that included Frayda Levin and Art Pope.Some in the administration, however, view a donor revolt as a useful way to motivate lawmakers. On Tuesday, Nick Ayers, chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, told a group of RNC donors that if Congress failed to enact the president’s agenda they should withhold their financial support and instead give to primary challengers.
