Trump’s Unpaid Rally Bills Add Colossal Sum to Already Staggering Debt
Amid his already staggering legal tab and the financial strain of running a campaign in a competitive election, Donald Trump has yet more bills to worry about.
According to NBC News, several cities are seeking more than $750,000 in unpaid fees from the Trump campaign for rallies held over the past several years. Four cities and a county say the former president owes them reimbursements for the costs of local law enforcement and first responder support at his campaign events.
The city of El Paso, Texas, makes up the bulk of that amount. The city is billing Trump for $569,200 in expenses from a 2019 event, according to an invoice provided to NBC News. The amount owed is so egregious that its City Council lawyered up to “advocate in the City’s interest in the collection of the outstanding invoices.” Yet the Trump campaign still hasn’t paid.
In classic MAGA fashion, Trump’s team has decided to blame someone else for the bill.
When NBC News reached out, a Trump campaign official said via text message that “questions related to local law enforcement and first responder costs should be directed to secret service.”
Though the Secret Service said through a spokesperson that it is true that the agency is typically the one that requests local safety reinforcements for campaigns, the agency “lacks a mechanism to reimburse local governments for their support during protective events.”
While some officials have acknowledged that Trump may not be legally responsible for the costs, they still believe that the Republican candidate should pay up due to the burden his rallies place. “We believe the Trump 2020 campaign should reimburse our City for those taxpayer dollars, and we have invoiced the campaign accordingly,” said a spokesperson for the city of Mesa, Arizona, which has billed the Trump campaign around $65,000 to cover additional law enforcement costs.
Trump could easily do the right thing and pay back these cities, even with the money he has earned from selling NFT trading cards—but with outstanding legal fees in the hundreds of millions, perhaps he isn’t looking to be charitable anytime soon.