Subject: Politico - Trump aides huddle with RNC to plot big-money strategy
From: "Paustenbach, Mark" <[email-masked]>
To: Comm_D <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 May 2016 15:54:08 -0700

Trump aides huddle with RNC to plot big-money strategy<http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/trump-hammering-out-party-fundraising-agreement-222984>

The presumptive nominee seeks to exert control over the Republican Party.

By KENNETH P. VOGEL, ELI STOKOLS and ALEX ISENSTADT

05/09/16 05:26 PM EDT

Updated 05/09/16 06:17 PM EDT

Donald Trump's campaign is hashing out the details of an agreement with Republican Party leaders that could allow the presumptive GOP presidential nominee to raise six-figure checks for his presidential campaign, multiple sources with direct knowledge of the negotiations tell POLITICO.

The fundraising agreement was among the subjects discussed at a Monday meeting at the Republican National Committee's Washington offices between top RNC officials, including chairman Reince Priebus, and senior Trump aides, including campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, senior adviser Paul Manafort and political director Rick Wiley, according to the sources.

The talks represent the first formal steps towards a merger between the official apparatus of the Republican Party and a candidate who many party leaders scorned until recently, and about whom there remains deep leeriness in some Republican quarters.

Since Trump essentially clinched the GOP nomination with a win in last week's Indiana primary, his staff have moved quickly to put their stamp on the party's general election planning process. Wiley has paid several visits to the party's headquarters on Capitol Hill to assess its efforts, according to the sources. The campaign also has been discussing convention-related issues with the RNC, including credentials and rules, the sources said, adding that the campaign is expected in the coming days to formally deputize a staffer as a liaison to the national party committee.

And deputy campaign manager Michael Glassner this week is set to lead a delegation to the convention site, Cleveland's Quicken Loans Arena, to receive a briefing from RNC officials involved in planning for the July event, as POLITICO first reported<http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/donald-trump-michael-glassner-convention-222878> last week.

Fundraising was not a major focus of Monday's meetings, according to RNC senior strategist Sean Spicer. "It was 3 ½ hours on briefings from all the RNC divisions regarding the capabilities and resources that we have been compiling to win in November," said Spicer, who attended the meeting, and said it included presentations on the party's ground game, and its data, communications and research efforts.

The conversations are also partly an effort to lay the groundwork for a Thursday meeting in Washington between Trump, Priebus and House Speaker Paul Ryan, who announced last Thursday that he is withholding his endorsement until Trump outlines a stronger commitment to conservative principles.

The perception among Trump's inner circle is that Ryan is attempting to leverage his position as chairman of the Cleveland convention into securing a deal that protects the party's control over vendor contracts and how the money raised jointly by the party and Trump's campaign is spent.

"Trump is a tough negotiator, understands the history of what he's entitled to here," another Trump confidant said. "They want the RNC to be autonomous but they'll work with the Trump campaign. They need Trump to help raise the money but they want their vendors to be the ones to spend the money."

But Trump may be more reliant on the national party than past presidential nominees, since his campaign has invested relatively little in field staff, voter data or a fundraising operation.

Some of Trump's infrastructure deficiencies can be traced to his unwillingness to dig deep into his own fortune to finance his campaign, which he has pledged from the beginning to self-finance.

Entering into a joint fundraising agreement and leaning on the party for cash and staff would help fill that void in an election expected to cost each side more than $1 billion. But it also could undermine his rhetoric about being independent from the party's donor class.

Trump has already agreed to appear next week at a $25,000 per-plate fundraiser to benefit the New Jersey Republican Party, just days after the New York billionaire tapped Gov. Chris Christie to run his presidential transition.

The May 19 event is being billed as a "roundtable" with Christie and Trump, and will be held at the Lawrenceville National Guard Armory, according to an invitation obtained by POLITICO. Just 12 people will be permitted to attend the roundtable, according to a note sent with the invitation.

The RNC has been taking the lead in reaching out to state parties to put together the joint fundraising arrangement with Trump's campaign, and its plans are actually further along than they were at this point four years ago, said one source familiar with the negotiations.

"I know (the Trump campaign staff) have been impressed with what the RNC already has on the ground," said the source. "Four years ago, when Romney walked into the building, the RNC didn't have anywhere close to the field staff that it has now. ... There is a big difference."

Yet efforts to finalize the agreement also could test the willingness of state GOP officials to get behind a presumptive nominee who some official openly opposed during the contentious primary.

Colorado's state party appeared to gloat last month after Trump's vanquished rival Ted Cruz swept all 34 delegate slots at the state's caucus. "We did it. #NeverTrump," the state party tweeted, only to delete and disavow<http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/colorado-gop-nevertrump-tweet-221766> the post minutes later.

Party spokesman Kyle Kohli on Monday said the Colorado GOP hasn't had any talks with Trump or the RNC about a joint fundraising agreement.

The South Carolina Republican Party is open to participating but hasn't engaged in any talks yet, said the chairman, Matt Moore.

The more state parties that participate, the more money a Trump joint fundraising committee can accept, thanks in part to a 2014 Supreme Court case called McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/mccutcheon-supreme-court-ruling-105303>. It struck down aggregate limits on total giving to federal campaigns, allowing maximum donations to as many different committees as a donor wanted.

Trump's likely general election opponent, Hillary Clinton, created an unprecedented joint fundraising committee<http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/clinton-fundraising-leaves-little-for-state-parties-222670> with the Democratic National Committee and 32 state party committees that can accept checks as large as $356,100 this year.

Early in the election cycle, the talk among GOP state party officials was of a joint fundraising committee that could include all 50 states and six territories, allowing maximum donations of about $1 million per person, according to one state party chairman. But those talks quieted as Trump's surprising rise threw the GOP primary into chaos, said the chairman.

Sources with knowledge of the RNC's current plans said its joint fundraising arrangement would include between four and 12 state committees, which could allow the committee to accept checks ranging from $78,800 and $158,000.
The joint committee could help Trump's campaign as well as the RNC, which has struggled to keep its finances intact. The committee ended March with just $16 million on hand and nearly $2 million in outstanding debt. Taken together, the bank account is a fraction of where the committee had been at similar points in 2008 and 2012.
Many Republican state party chairs, who depend on the RNC to fund a get-out-the-vote program, are anxious to see Trump and the committee form an agreement.

"We are a battleground state and we can expect a lot of money to support our push," said Rob Gleason, the Pennsylvania GOP chair. "We already were getting a lot of money from the RNC, but we need a lot more."
"Trump should be able to get us up to speed," he added.