Former president Donald Trump started a GoFundMe on Monday to help people affected by Hurricane Helene.
The fundraiser is described as an “official response” for “MAGA supporters” to financially support storm victims. Hurricane Helene has killed at least 130 people, with hundreds still missing.
As of Tuesday morning, over 13,000 people have donated more than $2 million. One of the top donors is “Senator Kelly Loeffler,” who gave at least $500,000. Loeffler served as a Republican senator from Georgia, a state hit by the hurricane.
Another major donor is William Ackman, a billionaire hedge fund manager who supports Trump. Dana White, the UFC CEO who spoke at the Republican National Convention, also donated $100,000. Other notable donors include personal injury attorney Dan Newlin and Bass Pro Shops, each giving $100,000.
Trump launched the GoFundMe during his visit to Valdosta, Georgia, where he surveyed the damage caused by the hurricane and spoke about the state’s response to the storm.
While the fundraiser appears to be a positive campaign move for Trump, it has raised questions from critics as another “Trump Authorized” GoFundMe fundraiser for families of people who were injured or killed during the first Trump assassination attempt is still accepting donations despite being launched in early July.
Some see it as a ploy to garner more campaign funds and support for Trump’s legal troubles.
“I smell a … rat!” one X user wrote. “Why would any of these big donors, donate through gofundme me? If I’m donating $100,000 it’s not going to be through gofundme, it’s going to be through a boots on the ground local organization. Is this more Trump money laundering?” another replied.
The fundraising campaigns are not the only announcement backfiring on the Republican presidential nominee.
Trump has been working to challenge the notion that people are leaving his rallies due to “exhaustion and boredom,” as Kamala Harris suggested earlier this month.
The vice president made the jab during the presidential debate with the Republican nominee on Sept. 10.
“During his rallies, you’ll hear him talk about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter…. And what you’ll notice is that people start leaving early out of exhaustion and boredom,” Harris said.
Trump firmly disputed Harris’s claim, stating, “People don’t leave my rallies. We have the biggest, most incredible rallies in the history of politics,” adding that people “don’t go” to the vice president’s rallies and making claims that “she’s busing them and paying them to be there.”
Since then, videos have been widely circulating online showing attendees at some of Trump’s most recent rallies leaving while the events are still underway.
During a Friday rally in Walker, Michigan, Trump attempted to rationalize on behalf of some departing crowd members, stating, “The people that you see leaving — because nobody ever leaves, and when they do, I finish up quick, believe me.
He also attributed the exits to logistical issues.
“Sometimes, if I’m late, the plane gets delayed. Lots of things happen. There’s a little hurricane in Florida, as you know,” Trump stated.
A video posted by the vice president’s campaign team also shows rallygoers standing behind Trump at his rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, exiting their rows while the Republican nominee was still speaking.
“Embarrassing,” one X user wrote.”This is brutal,” another added.
“Leaving while he’s on stage is nasty work,” another person said.
At the Erie rally, he attempted to explain away the small crowd size at a rally he held in Wisconsin on Saturday, which had to be moved into an indoor location because the Secret Service couldn’t sufficiently staff an outdoor event.
He claimed the event was initially supposed to host 50,000 people, but the crowd numbers had to be slashed to a mere 1,000 because the Biden administration “would not let us have enough people” to patrol the rally.
“But we had 50,000 people that showed up, but they didn’t want me to be outside. They said they couldn’t get us enough people because they were guarding the United Nations, and Iran, the president of Iran is here,” Trump said.
Trump has always underscored the tremendous crowd sizes at his events. He once notably touted that his inauguration’s audience size was larger than former President Barack Obama‘s. However, major media outlets posted side-by-side photo comparisons revealing that the crowd size at Obama’s 2009 inauguration was overwhelmingly larger than the audience numbers at Trump’s 2017 inauguration.
At the Democratic National Convention in August, Obama said that his presidential successor had a “weird obsession with crowd sizes.”
