Billionaire donors will be asked to shell out more than $800,000 (£630,000) for a seat at Donald Trump’s dinner table this weekend, as the former president ramps up a fundraising war with Joe Biden.
Mr Trump expects to rake in $43 million from Saturday’s Palm Beach event after making personal phone calls to rally big-money Republicans.
The figure would dwarf the $26 million his Democrat rival raised at his New York event with Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, which was dubbed the “most successful political fundraiser in American history”.
Melania Trump, who has been notably absent from her husband’s campaign so far, will be attending this weekend’s event, which is being held at hedge-fund billionaire John Paulson’s $110million Florida home.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump’s former political opponents, Tim Scott, Vivek Ramaswamy and Doug Burgum are billed as “special guests”
Donors can shell out $814,600 for “chairman level” tickets to the “inaugural leadership dinner”, the first major fundraiser since Mr Trump clinched the GOP nomination.
The fee buys guests “dinner seating” at Mr Trump’s table along with a reception, photo opportunity and a personalised copy of Mr Trump’s coffee table book Our Journey Together.
Others can pay $250,000 for a “host committee” ticket, which does not include the opportunity to break bread with the former president.
Mr Paulson, who is reportedly in the running to become Mr Trump’s treasury secretary, last month said the event had already raised $33 million from “a broad spectrum of donors”.
“The dinner is relatively small in nature, and we are almost at our cap”, he said.
The reported $43million figure was largely achieved by Mr Trump picking up the phone to make “peer-to-peer asks”, according to the US news website Axios.
The list of 38 dinner co-chairs signals that Mr Trump has managed to rally donors who had previously cooled on his political ambitions.
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