{"id":22877,"date":"2026-07-31T07:38:36","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T02:38:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=22877"},"modified":"2026-07-31T07:38:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T02:38:36","slug":"trump-reportedly-demanding-companies-and-donors-pay-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=22877","title":{"rendered":"Trump Reportedly Demanding Companies and Donors Pay Up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"post-body\">\n<div id=\"attachment_5708277\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5708277\" class=\"wp-image-5708277 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/am11.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AP22041734167366-1200x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/am13.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AP22041734167366-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/am13.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AP22041734167366-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/am13.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AP22041734167366-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/am13.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AP22041734167366-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/am13.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AP22041734167366-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/am13.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AP22041734167366-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-5708277\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">AP Photo\/Alex Brandon, File<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>President <strong>Donald Trump<\/strong> has taken an unusually hands-on role in raising money, personally directing multimillion-dollar fundraising efforts and pushing corporate leaders for increasingly large contributions, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/politics\/policy\/trump-donations-company-fundraising-1e34a78f?mod=e2tw\">report<\/a> published Thursday by <em>The Wall Street Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The <em>Journal<\/em> reported that Trump regularly calls top fundraiser <strong>Meredith O\u2019Rourke<\/strong>, whom he\u2019s dubbed the \u201cprincess of darkness,\u201d from the White House to review who has donated and who has not. According to people familiar with the conversations, the president frequently tells O\u2019Rourke to raise the size of her requests, with some donors being asked for as much as $50 million.<\/p>\n<p>In soliciting contributions, O\u2019Rourke has at times invoked Trump\u2019s direct involvement, telling prospective donors, \u201cThis is very important to the president. He\u2019s asked me to call you and ask you for this donation.\u201d On other calls, according to the outlet, she has referred to Trump as \u201cthe boss,\u201d saying, \u201cthe boss wants this money.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The <em>Journal<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/politics\/policy\/trump-fundraising-groups-financial-disclosures-8d5f5c35?mod=article_inline\">found<\/a> Trump has raised more than $800 million since returning to office, with money flowing to a wide range of ventures, including his planned <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/politics\/trump\/trump-teases-presidential-library-and-the-building-looks-very-familiar\/\">presidential library<\/a>, a new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/politics\/trump-teases-giant-white-house-ballroom-with-flurry-of-pics-nothing-like-it\/\">White House ballroom<\/a>, political committees, and projects tied to the nation\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/tag\/freedom-250\/\">250th anniversary<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Among the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/corporate-donors-to-trumps-ballroom-reap-50b-in-government-contracts-watchdog-finds\/\">donations<\/a> cited were $50 million from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/japanese-company-pours-50-million-into-trump-presidential-library\/\">SoftBank<\/a> for Trump\u2019s presidential library, roughly $25 million from Apple for the ballroom project, about $10 million from Microsoft, $5 million from Amazon, and an additional $10 million from Meta to a Trump-aligned political committee, on top of previous contributions.<\/p>\n<p>The <em>Journal<\/em> also revealed that wealthy donors invited to exclusive dinners or White House events were sometimes met with additional fundraising appeals instead of thank-yous. One executive, according to the report, was asked for another $1 million contribution only days after attending a dinner honoring a previous multimillion-dollar gift.<\/p>\n<p>Not to mention, multiple executives and board members told the <em>Journal<\/em> they believed multimillion-dollar donations translated into greater access and that if a company had an issue before the federal government that reached Trump\u2019s attention, he would want to know how much the company had contributed. One chairman of a publicly traded company said that companies understood they were either \u201cchecked on a list, or crossed off a list\u201d depending on whether they gave.<\/p>\n<p>An outside spokeswoman for Trump and O\u2019Rourke, <strong>Danielle<\/strong> <strong>Alvarez<\/strong>, told the <em>Journal<\/em> that Trump is the \u201cmost successful fundraiser in modern political history\u201d and said the money would help \u201cRepublicans win big in the midterms, build an enduring political infrastructure and continue advancing innovative private-sector initiatives.\u201d She added, \u201cOne thing has never changed. President Trump can\u2019t be bought.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>New: The Mediaite One-Sheet &#8220;Newsletter of Newsletters&#8221;<\/strong><br \/>Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/subscribe\">Subscribe now!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\nn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\nn.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\nt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\ndocument,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AP Photo\/Alex Brandon, File President Donald Trump has taken an unusually hands-on role in raising money, personally directing multimillion-dollar fundraising efforts and pushing corporate leaders for increasingly large contributions, according to a report published Thursday by The Wall Street Journal. The Journal reported that Trump regularly calls top fundraiser Meredith O\u2019Rourke, whom he\u2019s dubbed the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22878,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AP22041734167366-scaled.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}