00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now is my Forbes
00:06colleague, staff writer Zach Everson. Zach, thanks for coming on.
00:12Thanks for having me on again, Brittany. Appreciate it.
00:14The RNC wrapped up in Milwaukee this week, and you are reporting, quote, yet another
00:19Trump is converting donor funds into personal income. Talk to us about who.
00:26This time it is Lara Trump. As we know, she is the co-chair of the RNC, which is the number
00:31two position, having just been voted in there a few months ago. And looking through the
00:36latest campaign finance reports, you see that the RNC is paying her what looks like it'll
00:41be an annual salary of $163,000. So, you know, certainly something that looks competitive
00:48and a fair salary, assuming she's doing the job that she was elected to do. But it's also,
00:54just another example of a Trump family member pocketing GOP donor cash.
01:00So what is her specific history of being paid donor funds?
01:06So in this case, this is the first time her name has actually showed up in FEC records
01:12as a recipient. Does not mean it's the first time she's received donor funds, though.
01:17Back in 2020, HuffPost reported that the Trump campaign was paying her,
01:23along with Kim Guilfoyle, salaries, but they were not being paid directly. Instead,
01:28they were kind of being paid as like subcontractors almost.
01:31The money was going to then campaign manager Brad Parscale's company,
01:34which was then in turn passing the money out to Lara Trump and Kim Guilfoyle.
01:41I do want to take a couple steps back here. And aside from being the daughter
01:45in law of the former president, who exactly is Lara Trump?
01:49She is, well, she's married to Eric, and she is a former TV personality.
01:54I believe she was a producer with Inside Edition.
01:58She also toyed with running for Senate in 2020, I believe it was, did not end up running.
02:04But she's been pretty active in the campaign. Most notably, she was hosting a
02:10online show on, I believe it was on the president's Facebook page several years ago,
02:16where it was like a daily news show, but done specifically just for the campaign.
02:20The reason the campaign was paying her previously was that she, I think her title was a
02:25senior advisor or something along those lines.
02:28And so if we remember RNC chair history,
02:31Ronna McDaniel was actually the chair for a while. Now there's co-chairs,
02:36Lara Trump, as well as Michael Whatley. So how does her six-figure salary compare to his?
02:42It's significantly less. So it's one of the things that's confusing is that
02:45it's the second person in charge is the co-chair. There's no actually,
02:48there aren't two co-chairs. There's a chair and then a co-chair.
02:52He makes significantly more than that, but it seems like he might also have more on his plate.
02:56He pulls in about $330,000 annually, according to FEC filings.
03:03But he's also the RNC's general counsel. So you're not just getting somebody who's heading
03:07the group, but you're also getting an attorney there as well.
03:11And what about her counterpart at the DNC, chair of that, Jamie Harrison?
03:18Yes. Jamie Harrison's actually a little bit higher up than where she is because he is the
03:21head of that. There was no applicable person to compare it to in the DNC
03:26because all of their, their number two person is called the vice chair.
03:30And they have like six of them. And I believe five of them were elected officials who
03:35you know, have other jobs. There was one other person there whose name didn't pop up,
03:39but Jamie Harrison makes $177,000 a year in his job, which these days seems to largely be getting
03:46into Twitter fights with Nate Silver. And you've reported about this before,
03:51but remind us how Donald Trump as well as his family has turned donor funds in the past into
03:57personal income. So the RNC has forked over at least $3 million to Trump's businesses since 2016,
04:07which is a whopping sum, you know, to be honest. Especially when you compare it to the fact that
04:13prior to him assuming control of the party in 2016, they had only spent $39,000. So, you know,
04:19Trump has businesses all over the place. They weren't going to them until he was in charge
04:25of the party. So they, they paid his businesses $3 million. And then Donald Trump Jr. also has
04:31gotten in on the act again, not, not directly, but in 2019 and 2020, the RNC bought a total of about
04:39$400,000 worth of both of his books. So, you know, he didn't get all 400,000 of that. There are
04:45obviously some costs involved with books, but he would have gotten some of it in addition to getting
04:50a boost on the charts that would have certainly helped him with a bestseller list.
04:54And is there any indication that this is going to continue as the campaign heads into November?
05:02No, yes. I mean, she's, she's still in that job. So it seems like Laura Trump is still
05:06obviously going to be bringing in a salary and there is no sign whatsoever that the Trump's
05:11plan on stopping billing the RNC and other political entities for this. So I suspect
05:18we will continue to see this for as long as Trump's are high up in the party.
05:25Zach Everson per usual. Thanks for your reporting.
05:29Thanks for having me on again.
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